Today is the first Sunday in the month of December, the last month for that matter. Our Father and our God, we want to say thank You; if we have a thousand of tongues, they are not just enough, You have been so good, You have been so kind, You have been so wonderful, You have been so generous, You have been so merciful, You have been so loving, so lovely and so lovable.
Thank You because is by Your mercies that we are what we are today, the devil was determined to have us but Your grace saved us. Thank You for Your abiding presence, thank You for the impact of Your immesurable grace in our life, thank You for taking us through January to this present time, thank You for the grace to weather the storm of life, Lord, we are grateful unto You, accept our thanks in the name of Jesus. Accept our praises in the name of Jesus.
We have gone through a lot but thank You because by Your grace we are standing. And thank You because You are the author and the finisher of our faith, in other words, whatever You start, You have the capacity to see it through and that’s why we are left with no doubt that You will see us through this year in a very glorious manner. Accept our thanks in the name of Jesus Christ.
Lord, today we have come just to say thank You, Lord, we pray You will accept us, You will accept our worship in the mighty name of Jesus. And as we register our gratitude onto You today, we pray Father Almighty God that You will sustain all our blessings and You will bless us much more in the name of Jesus.
I pray for all Your children who have been faithful in the payments of their tithes and in the giving of their offering, my Lord and my Father, unto them let there be express fulfillment of Your promise in the name of Jesus Christ. Every promise You have made concerning righteousness, faithfulness and commitment in Your household, my Lord and my Father, I pray You will reward and You’ll activate in the lives of Your people in the name of Jesus Christ.
Bless us like never before. Encounter everyone, everyone under the influence of our voice, those who are here physically and those who are listening to us online, Father, today encounter us in a miraculous way in Jesus name. Have Your way in this service, take control of everything, speak to us by Yourself. We have not come to listen to any man but we have come to listen to You, speak to us Lord very clearly in an express manner, speak to us in Jesus name.
And give us all individually and collectively that reset heart so that Your word can be productive in our lives. Blessed be Your name forever. We commit the forthcoming congress onto Your hands Lord, let it be glorious in the name of Jesus; from start to finish, let it be miraculous and let there be no any evil testimony, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed.
Good morning church, happy new month! December is our month of celebrations because twelve actually symbolize reflection, completion and celebration, and the truth of the matter is that God has been kind to us.
I was listening to the radio on our way to church this morning and one guy on the radio was saying there is no one who can say God has not been kind to him because when there is life there is hope; the breathe you have is not given by yourself, is God-given and of course is God’s prerogative, so the fact that you have your breath alone calls for thanksgiving. I pray that as we appreciate God from the depths of our hearts today, God will be provoked to do much more for every one of us in Jesus name.
Suffice to say that you must also learn to count your blessing. Like that song writer says ‘count your blessings, name them one by one,’ it is our inability to be intentional that always makes us have this sense of change, but if you’re able to sit down and count the things God has done, you will know that God has done so much for you. The Lord will bless you in Jesus name.
[Birthday thanksgiving]
1st Samuel 7: 12, then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mispeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, hitherto hath the Lord has helped us. Brethren, today we are here to celebrate the goodness of God like the children of Israel did during the time of prophet Samuel, I’m sure many of you know the story, the children of Israel had had different kinds of battles, they had been randomly defeated by the Philistines and the Moabites, and it got to a point that even the ark of God was staying for too long on the spot.
And when inquiries were made, it was discovered that all that had happened to the children of Israel happened because of the state of their unrighteousness and unpreparedness. So God spoke to Samuel, tell the children of Israel to repent, turn from their wicked ways and seek the face of the Lord in prayers and in fasting, and after that has been done, Samuel gave an order for the children of Israel to congregate together while he preached for them. The children of Israel obeyed the instruction of the man of God.
News got to the Philistines and they got up pronto to come and attack the children of Israel, but because God was on their side and because they heeded that divine instruction, God took over their battles. And I pray today in the name of Jesus that as we heed the divine instructions of the Almighty God, God will take over our battles in Jesus name.
God took over the battle of the children of Israel and the enemies were discomfited and Samuel took a stone, he set it (according to the scripture) between Mispeh and Shen, and said hitherto the Lord has helped us. Today, all we need to do or all we have come to do for God to intervene in our lives and to exceed our expectations is just to appreciate Him for all that He has done.
In the last three months, we’ve been looking at the story of the ten lepers as captured in the book of Luke 17: 11-19, and of course I remember I’ve shared quite a number of things with us in the course of the time. I remember the first thing I shared with us was the fact that gratitude is a response of faith, in other words, gratitude acknowledges the miraculous and of course the force that is behind it, which is God.
Number two, we shared on the fact that gratitude opens the door to wholeness; that many receive a touch from God, but only the grateful receive complete restoration as captured in that first Samuel that we read. We found out that after the intervention of God in the lives of the children of Israel, all the things that they had lost, all the things that had been snatched away from them were restored back to them. I stand on this exalted altar and I decree in the name of Jesus that before this year winds on, everything you have lost shall be restored back to you in Jesus name.
I also talked about the fact that gratitude distinguishes you in the crowd, it sets you apart, it makes you different, because a thankful person stands out in a world of entitlement and forgetfulness. If there is something that is so common, if there is a malice that has eaten deep into the fabrics of the people in the society today, is the problem of forgetfulness.
We forget easily, especially the good things; when you treat people nice, they easily forget, the one they don’t easily forget is the bad one. And they will tell you even when you wake them up in the middle of the night, they will tell you on October 27, you did this, on December 2nd, you did the same thing, I remember in January 2024, you went that same way, but the good things that fellow has done will never be remembered.
It is not a good thing because that way you can never be distinguished. The only way to be distinguished is when you stand out among the crowd to declare the goodness of God for all that He has done for us.
I also mentioned that gratitude is a mark of spiritual maturity. You find out that those who appreciate are people that are very close to God, ingrates are far away from God because whatever comes to them is believed to be something that they deserve, they look at it from the point of view of ‘it is my right’. Mature believers live with awareness of God’s daily , mercy, and of course they express it continuously.
Romans 9:15 says, for he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion, so you’ll know that this thing that is happening is just by the mercy of God.
So today by the grace of God, I’ll be talking to us on “Gratitude, the Sustainer of Blessing.” Gratitude, like I said, is not just only a response but also a preservative of grace, it keeps our hearts align with God’s will. Like I said that show me a grateful man, you show me somebody who knows God, gratitude aligns our hearts with God’s will.
In first Thessalonians 5:18, (that’s popular scripture), it says, in every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, concerning me. In every thing we should give thanks because that is the will of God for our lives per time. Thankfulness even in trials sustains our faith and keep us in divine alignment with God, we are in sync with God, we operate in unity with God, we follow that divine direction. No struggle, no argument, we believe that is the way to go according to God’s direction per time.
And the next point I would like to make is the fact that gratitude prevents murmuring and complaining, Philippians 2:14, it says do all things without memories and disputings. Grateful people don’t murmur, those who murmor are the ingrates; grateful people don’t fight, those who fight and quarrel everywhere are the ingrates, but God expects us as His children to be humble, to be peaceful and grateful.
Brethren, entitlement leads to ingratitude. When you carry the sense of entitlement, it leads to ingratitude; and ingratitude often leads to murmuring. And I want to say this for whatever it is worth that nothing in life is obligatory, because obligations are subject to capacity, obligations are subject to capability.
You may wish to perform an obligation but you may not have the power to do it, so enough of all this grandstanding, ‘it is your right to send me to school, daddy, you must send me to school, it is my right to be given money to run the house,’ if he does not have nko? Praise the Lord! ‘It is my right to live,’you cannot come and say it is my right to live, we live on God’s grace, he who God keeps is kept, if God decides to take the life, it’s gone, you are a dead man.
There is this song we sing, ‘unquestionable You are the Lord…’; death will come and take the son and leave the father, some instances, death will come, it takes the wife and leaves the husband, in some cases it takes the man leaves the wife, God is unquestionable, nothing is obligatory in life. Entitlement leads to ingratitude and ingratitude leads to murmuring, and you can never murmur and be sinless.
A grateful heart is a joyful heart, it’s always free from bitterness and resentment. In Proverbs 11:25, it says a liberal soul shall be made fat; the word liberal there is not restrictive to or restricted to giving generosity and all the rest, a liberal soul also includes a grateful heart.
Gratitude multiplies what you have already; it has the capacity to turn what is not enough to more than enough. Jesus gave thanks (you know the story) before feeding the 5,000; thanksgiving leads to supernatural increase.
I want to beg all of us today as I round up, give thanks to God, the easiest way to increase, the easiest way to expansion, the easiest way to multiplication and enlargement is the way of thanksgiving.
Shall we rise on our feet, I want you to pray to God this morning – Father, give me the key of gratitude in the name of Jesus. Give me a heart of gratitude in the name of Jesus. Give me that heart, give me that sense, give me that commitment so that in all things we’ll give You all the glory, we’ll give You all the honor and we’ll give You all the adoration.
If you are here, you have not given your life to Christ, the first key to gratitude is salvation. I will wait until Baba finishes with his sermon before we come back to make an altar call, but suffice to say that if you are here, you have not given your life to Christ, you need to reflect on it, you cannot continue like this.
Today is the 7th of December 2025, once today passes, you will never see it again, but something tells me that you need to make it memorable, let it be a day you will remember for good in your life. And I pray that the presence of God will continue to be with you, God will give us a heart of gratitude in the mighty name of Jesus. God will take away entitlement mentality from our system, He will recalibrate our mind, He will recalibrate our heart and make us fit for purpose which is to praise and to worship Him from now till eternity. Blessed be the name of the Lord forever, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
God bless you.
