Our Father and our God, from the depth of our hearts we declare Your praise this morning. We thank You for all that You have done for us, particularly for sparing our lives to see another month, it’s not something that we can take for granted, we appreciate the fact that it wasn’t everyone that saw the beginning of this year that is alive today, we are not rejoicing over the misfortune of anyone but Lord we are just thanking You for all that You have done for us.
Thank You because today we are alive and well, we can stand in the committee of Your people to declare Your praise; thank You for the breath of life, thank You for Your move in our lives from the first month to the third month and even up to this moment; thank You because we know that Your intervention in our lives, Your continuous intervention will not cease, accept our thanks in the mighty name of Jesus.
Lord, we just pray because like one of the stanzas of that hymn says that ‘even against the effort, our weary heart will not allow us to praise You as we ought to’, but we pray this morning for the overcoming grace over weariness, the weariness of our heart and everything that is stifling praise and gratitude in our lives in the mighty name of Jesus.
Help us to praise You today and let our praise and worship come unto You as a sweet smelling savour in Jesus name. We ask Lord that even as we praise You that You will bless us the more in the name of Jesus.
We pray for all Your children who have been faithful in the payments of their tithes and the giving of their offerings, Lord, that all of them shall be remembered for good in Jesus name. You owe no man anything, therefore Lord, we pray that there shall be express fulfillment of Your promises in the life of these ones in Jesus name.
As we continue in this service, please come along with us and take all the glory, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed. Praise the Lord!
Good morning church, welcome to His glorious presence, I pray that someone will see Jesus here today in the mighty name of Jesus. And a very happy new month to all of you; welcome to the new month, the month of divine remembrance, the month of grace, the month of blessing, this month will not end until you are blessed in the name of Jesus. The Lord bless you mightily in Jesus name.
November has been declared as our month of divine remembrance because we know the Lord will remember you. I told them in the workers meeting that November which is the eleventh month actually symbolizes reflection, it symbolizes remembrance and divine intervention, because whenever the Lord remembers, He intervenes; when He remembered Noah, He quickly rescued Noah. I pray in the name of Jesus that for everyone that have been locked up in the box of life, the Lord will remember you this month and of course He will rescue you, it will be a month to remember for good for you and all our family members in the name of Jesus.
So please open up, be positively minded and I can assure you that everything will end in praise for all of us in Jesus name. God bless you.
[Birthday Celebrations]
Once again, we welcome every one of you to this glorious service in the name of Jesus. Very shortly, we’ll be going into a short exaltation as always the case just to prepare the ground for the message of our father in the Lord, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye who will be coming our way very shortly.
In September, we talked about the Value of Gratefulness, and of course we took our text from the Book of Luke 17: 11 – 19. I remember I shared with us that gratitude is a powerful force in the life of every genuine believer, and of course I also shared with us that gratitude is more than just saying thank you, I told us that it is a spiritual posture that recognizes God as the source of every good and perfect gift as captured in James 1: 17.
By the grace of God, we focused (that was in September) extensively on gratitude as a response of faith, and I told us that gratitude acknowledges the miracle and the miracle worker. I also shared with us the fact that it reveals the heart behind the healing as captured in the book of Luke 17: 15-16, and last month during our national thanksgiving, I actually focused on the fact that gratitude opens the door to wholeness, that when you appreciate God then you receive a touch of completion because once you show gratitude for what has been done, then God will be compelled to make sure that your miracle is complete. I remember I told you that many receive a touch from God but only the grateful receive what I call total restoration.
By the grace of God, today I’ll be focusing on the fact that Gratitude Distinguishes You from the Crowd, in other words, gratitude separates you from the crowd. Isaiah 38: 18 & 19, it says, “For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. 19The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” I don’t know how many of us are here today with a heart and a commitment to giving thanks to God, if you are here, rise on your feet and shout hallelujah! Hallelujah.
Brethren, a thankful person stands out in a world of entitlement and forgetfulness; in a congregation like this, the way they respond, the way they dance, the way they react separates them from others. And this is simply to tell us that gratitude is not just polite, gratitude is powerful, people easily remember how you made them feel.
And I shared with the workers this morning that there is nothing that makes someone feel invisible faster than being unacknowledged. When you do something, you try to do something nice to somebody and the fellow for whatever reason just fails to acknowledge, it makes you feel invisible, it makes you feel like you want to disappear. Sometimes for those of us that cannot hold it, it will be like did you see what I sent to you? Did you receive my message?
And the first say yes and inside of you, you are burning because you feel so unrecognized, your goodness is unacknowledged; Yoruba has a local expression that yinni yinni, k’eni o le se’mii of it, in other words, one good deserves another, but here you have done well to somebody and he doesn’t just see anything special about it. So gratitude is not just polite, it’s more than a compliment, it’s a powerful thing.
Appreciation is one of the things that keeps relationship warm and sustain respect. If you want to maintain your relationship, maybe as friends, as couple, as brothers and sisters, gratitude plays a critical role. You want to maintain warmth and keep your respect even as parents, gratitude is very critical because in the book of Luke, our text, Jesus healed ten lepers but only one came back. Suffice to say, number one, gratitude is a mark of spiritual maturity.
It takes those who know to understand, it takes those who have received the wisdom to know that whoever has treated you nice deserves a ‘thank you’. In Colossians 3:15, it says, and let the peace of God rule your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
Let me tell you this that gratitude and peace works together; you cannot be thankful and your life will not be peaceful, it says and let the peace of God rule your hearts, to which ye also are called in one body and be ye thankful, it’s a command. Mature believers live with what I call an awareness of God’s daily mercies and express it continuously; if there is something that David understood perfectly, is the power of thanksgiving because the Bible says is of the Lord’s mercies that we were not consumed because of His compassion that faileth not.
How many of us are perfect? Let a perfect man in the house shout hallelujah. None of us is perfect, we leverage on God’s grace and mercy, and that’s why the Bible says our righteousness is like a filthy rag, so when you have the awareness of God’s daily mercies and compassion, you want to thank Him all the time.
Number two, it’s like human nature is conveniently designed to forget things, many forget the source of the blessings immediately after we have received it.
Deuteronomy 8: 11-14 speaks to this, it says, “Beware (tell your neighbor, beware), that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I command thee this day. 12Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and has built goodly houses, and dwell therein; 13and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou has had is multiplied; 14then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Moses issued a strong caution to the children of Israel not to forget the Lord and His commandments when they become prosperous in the Promised Land.
Brethren, gratitude keeps us humble and reminds us of God’s hands in our success. Many of us are fond of saying I’m a product of self, who owns you? No, we are product of grace. Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15: 10, I am what I am today by His grace; I labored, there are those who labored but it is that grace that makes the difference in my life.
Number three, a thankful person draws God’s attention and further outpourings of His blessing. Luke 17: 17 & 18, the same scripture says, and Jesus answering said, were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger; Jesus noticed that only one returned, and I want to say this today that gratitude is rare and it catches heaven’s eye and attention.
Out of ten, there will always be one, because it’s rare it has become a magnet of some sort for other blessings, and that’s why I want to encourage us that whenever we come to the presence of God, cast everything aside, offer your praise to God. Not only in the church because thanksgiving should be a momentary affair, I don’t want to say daily affairs, but it should be a momentary affair, something that we do in our subconscious mind from time to time.
I know a man, before he starts talking he says ‘thank You Jesus’, in the course of his conversation he says ‘thank You Jesus’, by the time he’s completing he says ‘thank You Jesus’. Before you eat your food you say ‘thank You Jesus’, as you are eating, you say ‘thank You Jesus’, because it’s not everyone that has food that can eat. In fact, I find out that the poor eat more than the rich, how many of you have checked out that the poor eat more than the rich?
There was a time I could eat four times a day when I was a factory worker, you know need energy, we blow with bread, rice was not so fanciful then because that one will not give you enough energy, you look for bread and beans because that one attracts a lot of water, it’s like cement, but when you see rich people, in fact, they drink hot water and lime, let somebody shout hallelujah! If you take a rich man out on buffet, you have just wasted your money.
Number four, grateful people carry favor and honor. Proverbs 3: 9 & 10 says, honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. 10So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine; here we are encouraged to give God the first and the best of our possessions and income as an act of worship with the promise that God will respond with abundant blessings, when we honor God with our thanksgiving, God honors us in returns.
There are many biblical examples, if you go to 2 Samuel 6: 14 – 22, there you find where King David danced and gave thanks before the ark, and guess what, his gratitude distinguished him from others and earned him God’s commendation. You see when you come to the presence of God like this and you see some people dancing, sometimes the temptation is there for you to begin to look and begin to rationalize, why is he dancing like that?
David did the same thing and the wife rationalized and cautioned him, why are you behaving like this in the presence of the whole congregation? Look at the way you are dancing, you threw caution into the winds, and David told her, look, I’m doing this in appreciation of what my Maker has done for me, and the Bible records that the only woman that remained barren in biblical history happens to be that same woman. My prayer for every one of us here today is that God will stir up the spirit of gratitude in our hearts in Jesus name.
Shall we rise on our feet…
[Music]
God loves gratitude, God loves it when His people say, “God, I want to say thank You”, if you followed, I told you that one of the things that keeps relationship warm and sustain respect is ‘thank you’. So I want us to bow down our heads this morning, I want you to go before the Lord and tell Him Father, for all that You have done, I want to say thank You; for giving me life, I say thank You; for giving me strength, I want to say thank You; that I can stand today and people are not running away from me, I want to give You all the glory.
Open your mouth and bless the Almighty God, but if you are here, you have no relationship with Christ, the choristers took us to Acts of Apostle 4:12 this morning before their ministration that salvation does not come from any other place and there is no name that is given to men under the heavens by which we can be saved except by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I want you to talk to God today, if you want God to accept your gratitude then you need to plead for mercy, you need to tell God, Father, in every area that I’ve come short of Your glory, please have mercy on me. I want to have a relationship with You, I want You to be my Lord and personal Savior, I have recognized the fact that without You I will amount to nothing, my effort will amount to nothing. From today I want to strike a partnership with You, Father Almighty, please overlook my past, avail me of Your grace, and from today, help me to walk in the newness of this understanding, help me to walk in the newness of this wisdom.
The rest of us, I want us to talk to God this morning, thank Him…
[Altar Call]
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