Rick Warren - How God Blesses Grateful Hearts A Thanksgiving Message—Part One

Hi, this is Pastor Rick warrant On behalf of my

family and all of our staff here at Daily Hope.

We wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Today, Rick will share

a special Thanksgiving message called how God Blesses Grateful Hearts.

But first, in just a few moments, we're going to

tell you how you can get a beautifully illustrated devotional

for children by Pastor Rick that will help them discover

how much God loves them and that He has a

special plan and purpose for their life. You can find

out more by going to Pastorick dot com while you

listen to today's message. If you want, you can just

text the word Hope to eight hundred six hundred five

thousand and four for more information. That's the word Hope

to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Right now,

Pastor Rick with part one of a message called How

God Blesses Grateful Hearts.

Hi, everybody, have I told you lately that I love

you because I do Happy Thanksgiving? You know, since this

next week is Thanksgiving, I'm pausing my series that we

can prepare ourselves for Thanksgiving Day, so you know what

I did this last week. I read through again every

reference to gratitude and thanksgiving in the Bible, and there

are actually over four hundred passages that mention thanksgiving or gratitude. Now,

what I saw in my Bible study were two big ideas. First,

God wants gratitude to be the primary motivation behind everything

we do or say or think. Let me say that again.

God wants gratitude to be the primary motive, the primary

motivation behind everything that we do or say or think

we want. He wants us to do everything out of

thanksgiving and out of gratitude. The second thing I learned

is that God rewards gratitude with a long list of

blessings and benefits when we live with this continual attitude

of gratitude or thanksgiving. So today, if you'll get out

your message notes, I want to share how God blesses

grateful hearts, how God blesses grateful hearts, And I want

to identify a short sample list of benefits of gratitude.

And then I'm going to give you a starter list

of Bible verses that you can use on Thanksgiving Day.

And then we're going to practice God's three favorite ways

that he loves for us to use in expressing our

gratitude to him. This is what I call God's love language.

Now let's start by reading the top two scriptures on

the top of your outline. Deuteronomy chapter twenty eight, verses

one to eight talks about the importance of obedience and

the blessing that God gives when we obey his commands.

It says this Deuteronomy twenty eight one eight. If you

fully obey the Lord your God, and if you carefully

follow all his commands, all of these blessings will be yours.

And then he gives us a laundry list. The Lord

will bless you in the city and in the country.

He will bless your children, as well as blessing your

crops and your livestock. The Lord will bless your harvest

and the food you prepare. The Lord will bless wherever

you go. The Lord will even defeat your enemies when

they attack you. Yes, the Lord will send his blessing

on all you put your hand to, and bless everything

you do. Now, God promises these blessings to us if

we do what He tells us to do. In other words,

if we follow us instructions for life, he says, I'm

going to bless everything you do. Now. This past week,

as I was studying what God tells us to do

about the importance of gratitude, you know what, I noticed

that five different times in scripture, God tells us that

gratitude is far, far more than just saying thank you

every so often. No. No, Gratitude is a constant mindset,

you know, I write that down. Gratitude is a constant

mindset of thankfulness. It's more than just saying thank you

every once in a while to God or to people.

It's an attitude of gratitude that you make as your lifestyle.

God wants us to respond to everything that happens in

our lives with an attitude of gratitude. Now, what I

want to do is read the next verse aloud together,

So everybody look at that first Thesalonians five eighteen from

the New Living Translation, and let's read it slowly, allow together, Okay, Ready,

Always be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's

will for you. Now, always be thankful in all circumstances.

That about covers everything, right, there's no loophole there. Always

be thankful in all circumstances. For this is God's will

for you. Now, if you obey that, God says I'm

going to bless you in every area of your life.

And notice that he says, this is God's will for you,

God's will for your life. You say, I want to

know God's will for my life. God's will is that

you are always grateful. You're always thankful, You're always full

of the attitude of gratitude. Now, of course, when God

wants us to help us do the right thing, he

always attaches a benefit or blessings to doing it. I

happen to have right now in my library seventy nine

different books on the topic of gratitude. So I've studied

this a lot. Seventy nine different books just on the

topic of gratitude. And what I've discovered is that both

scripture and scientific studies show that having a mindset of

gratitude yields great, great blessings. This is an important message

that I'm going to share with you before Thanksgiving, but

you're going to use it the rest of your life.

This could actually be an entire series of messages, but

let me just breeze through some bullet points there on

your outline. There's a list of bull of points on

the benefits of the blessings of gratitude. Notice first, gratitude

improves your brain and your physical health. Did you know that.

I don't have time to go into all of these

and talk about them, but doctors say that gratitude is

the healthiest human emotion. It improves your brain, it improves

your physical health. Number two, gratitude creates happiness. If you

want to be happy, develop a thankful heart. The happiest

people are those who are the most grateful. Number three,

Gratitude helps you sleep better. You probably didn't know that.

That's a recent discovery, but the Bible told us that

literally thousands of years ago in the Book of Proverbs.

Gratitude Number four is the antidote to toxic emotions. In

other words, it defeats things like worry and depression and

anger and fear. You can't be grateful and worried at

the same time, or depressed and grateful at the same time.

It defeats those toxic emotions. The next one, gratitude improves relationships.

You want better relationships, become a more grateful man or woman.

You know what if you expressed gratitude more to your spouse,

you'd have a whole lot less conflict. And then gratitude

opens the door to people and to other opportunities. I

had a personal example of that. I could tell you

this week, but I don't have a time to tell you. Gratitude.

When you were express gratitude to people, you make friends,

It opens doors, It gives you opportunities. Gratitude, the Bible says,

is the evidence of spiritual maturity. You want to know

if your spiritual mature, how grateful are you? How much

do you live with the attitude of gratitude. Glossians two

nine says this, look on the screen. Plant your roots

in Christ and let him be the foundation for your life.

Be strong in your faith, always overflowing with circle. This thanksgiving,

all right, It is a mark of maturity. The more

mature you are, the more grateful you'll be. And then

gratitude pleases God and it brings his blessing. The Bible says,

it's the sacrifice that God loves most, the sacrifice of gratitude.

This is Pastor Rick's daily hope. Rick will be back

in a moment with the second half of today's message,

But first, if this message has encouraged you, or if

God puts someone on your mind that needs to hear it,

would you share it? You'll be glad you did, and

be sure to let them know about Pastor ricks free

daily email devotional at pastorick dot com.

Pastor Rick says it's vitally important for children to understand

that even before the universe was created, God had them

in mind, and that He has a special plan and

purpose for their life. That's why he created The Purpose

Driven Life devotional book for children. This inspirational resource uses

the principles found in Pastor rix life changing bestseller The

Purpose Driven Life, but delivers them as one hundred devotions

that speak directly to the daily challenges kids face and

gives real world applications to help them discover their purpose.

Paired with powerful scripture passages and engaging illustrations, young readers

will thrive on the biblical wisdom that has helped millions

of people throughout the world. Will send you The Purpose

Driven Life one hundred illustrated Devotions for Children today as

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This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Once again, here's Rick.

You want to know if your spiritually mature, how much

do you live with the attitude of gratitude. Glossians two

nine says this look on the screen. Plant your roots

in Christ and let Him be the foundation for your life.

Be strong in your faith, always overflowing with circle. This thanksgiving,

all right, it is a mark of maturity. The more

mature you are, the more grateful you'll be. And then

gratitude pleases God, and it brings his blessing. The Bible

says it's the sacrifice that God loves most, the sacrifice

of gratitude. Now, what has always baffled me about Thanksgiving

Day is how very little actual time is given to

thanksgiving of God. We spend a full day preparing the meal.

We spend several hours watching football and talking and maybe

just hanging out and maybe one or two men. And

it's thanking God in prayer because you don't want the

food to get cold with a long prayer. So even

though it's Thanksgiving Day, it's what we do the least

of on that day. So I want to give you

some homework. It's a homework assignment for Thanksgiving Day with

those that you have Thanksgiving with. Here is a starter

list for thanking God this Thanksgiving. He said, I don't

know what to be thankful for. Well, it's a list

of verses. And what I would encourage you to is,

when you're sitting at the table together, ask everybody around

your table to read one of the verses, okay, and

then after all the verses have been read, you might

start a discussion simply asking well, which of these verses

are you the most thankful for? And it may be

something that's already been mentioned, or maybe something that hasn't

been mentioned. What does God want us to be grateful for,

not just a thanksgiving but all the time. Well, as

we go through this list of verses, and again, didn't

give you any blanks, so just circle the reason in

each verse. Okay, here are some reasons why we need

to be the most grateful people of all people. First,

because God gave us life. God gave us life, Psalm

one thirty nine, thirteen and fourteen. You created informed me.

Circle that you created informed me in my mother's body.

So I thank you because you made me. I wouldn't

even be alive if it weren't for God. That's reason enough.

Number two, we can be thankful that we're still alive.

Are you glad you're still alive from a year ago?

Ecclesiastes eleven eight says, be grateful for every year you live.

That's another thing to be grateful for. Number three, we

can be grateful that He saved us. So I'm thirteen

verse five, My heart is happy because you saved me.

Number four, we can be grateful because God is good.

God is good. Circle this, I give you thanks because

you are good, says Psalm fifty four, verse six. Here's

another one. I can be grateful that God answers our

prayers Psalm one eighteen twenty one. I praise the Lord

for answering my prayers. And I can be grateful that

he shows us how to live Psalm sixteen, verse seven.

I praise the Lord because he guides me. Here's another

one I can praise the Lord. I can thank God

that he forgives me Psalm eighteen, verse one. Tell the

Lord how thankful you are because he is kind and

always merciful. And then number eight, I can be grateful

that he will never stop loving us Psalm one oh seven,

verse eight. Give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love. Now,

I want to spend the rest of our time together

looking at what I call God's three favorite ways. God's

three favorite ways for us to express gratitude to him.

This last week, in my study of every passage in

the Bible that references gratefulness or thanksgiving, I found at

least a dozen different ways that God tells us to

express our gratitude he tells us, But I want to

focus on just the three most mentioned ways because they

are mentioned more than all the others put together. These

must be God's favorite expressions of gratitude, because, as I said,

he refers to them, these three that I must share today,

more than all the others combined. Now, the Bible has

a lot to say about the songs of Thanksgiving, the

offerings of Thanksgiving, and the cup of Thanksgiving. I'm sure

you're aware that we all have, as human beings, different

love languages. Your love language is different than the language

of your spouse. What makes your spouse feel loved is

different than what makes you feel loved. We like to

be told that we're loved in different ways. That's because

we're all different. Well, so does God. And what I'm

going to share with you today are God's three top

love languages. These are the ones that bring him the

most pleasure. So let's look at the first one. The

first habit of expressing gratitude is this write it down,

singing back to God. Singing back to God. Now you

may not know this. Nobody has ever told us to you,

but God is a singing God. Did you know that

The Bible tells us that God sings? In fact, And

here's the shocker, he sings about you. He sings love

songs and joyful songs about you. Zephaniah, Chapter three, verse

seventeen says this, the Lord, your God is with you,

and he is your mighty savior. He takes great delight

in you, calming your fears with his love, and he

rejoices over you with singing about you. Did you know

that verse? God rejoices over you with singing about you. Now,

let me just say this. Think about this. You've never

heard God sing over you. But one day in heaven,

you're going to hear God sing about you. And it's

going to be the most beautiful, joyful sound you've ever heard.

I can't wait to hear pure perfect joy. We have

joy on this play it, but it's a broken joy.

It's an imperfect joy. When God sings it is pure,

perfect joy. And you're gonna get to hear God sing

over you one day. That's something to look forward to.

Have you ever listened to a mother calm her baby

by quietly singing to that baby. I could never forget

the sacred moments of listening to my wife, okay, love

our children with lullabies. I can hear her voice in

a soft voice, humming and singing to our babies. That's

how God loves you. God sings. You didn't know that.

In fact, the only reason music exists in the universe

is because God invented it. God is a musical god,

and since you were created in his image, you like

music too. Verses don't like music. They're not created in

his image. Worms don't like music, they're not created in

his image. So let me show you just a few

verses of scripture where God tells us to express our

thanks to him to singing Psalm one seven, verse seven.

Sing out your thanks to him. Sing praises to our God,

Psalm ninety five, verse two. Let us come before him

with thanksgiving, that's what we're talking about, and sing joyful

songs of praise. Now now, friends, this is one of

the main reasons for coming together to worship together instead

of just watching a service online. You miss the value

of singing praise together. You may not realize this, but

you sing better when you sing with others. Right. Yeah,

I don't like to hear myself sing, but I don't

mind singing when there's five hundred or one thousand other

people out there. Colossian three point sixteen says this sing

psalms and hymns and sacred songs. Singing to God with

thanksgiving in your hearts. This is the first habit of

thanksgiving that God loves singing back to God. Are you

doing that Soami? I don't sing? Somebody said I can't sing.

Somebody said I've lost my voice, Sir, I never had it. Listen,

listen closely to a pastor who loves you. God loves

your voice. He gave it to you. He gave you

your voice. He wants to hear your voice from you,

not somebody else's, not you trying to be somebody else.

He wants to hear your voice because He gave it

to you. And if you are embarrassed about singing with

your voice, I'll just be honest me. You've got a

pride problem, you got an ego issue. You need to

learn to accept yourself the way God does. God enjoys

hearing you sing praise to Him.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. If this message

has encouraged you, or if God puts someone on your

mind that needs to hear it, would you share it?

You'll be glad you did, and be sure to let

them know about Pastor Ricks free daily email devotional at

pastorick dot com. Rick will be back in just a moment,

but first, Pastor Rick says it's vitally important for children

to understand that even before the universe was created, God

had them in mind, and that He has a special

plan and purpose for their life. That's why he created

the Purpose Driven Life devotional book for children. This resource

uses the principles found in Pastor Rick's best selling book,

The Purpose Driven Life, but delivers them as devotions that

speak directly to the daily challenges kids face. Here's Rick

to tell you more.

You know, ever since the publication of The Purpose Driven Life,

people have been asking me how they can teach their

young children about the purpose of life. And they say,

and I agree, that it's never too early to start

teaching your children that they're loved by God and He

has a purpose for their life. It's never too soon

to tell a child God made you unique so you

could fulfill your special life mission on earth, and God

planned you just for that. Now here's the super good news.

We have taken the principles that are taught in The

Purpose Driven Life and we've written them into short devotionals

aim specifically at children ages four to eight years old. Today,

more than ever, kids at this age need need to

hear the message that they're not an accident. They need

to hear Even before the universe was created, God had

you in mind, and he planned you for his purposes.

You were made to last forever. Now. This book is

called The Purpose Driven Life one hundred Illustrated Devotions for Children,

and it includes engaging illustrations and devotionals that speak directly

to the daily challenges that all of our kids are facing.

And as a way of saying thanks to you for

your financial gift to Daily Hope, I want to send

you a copy of The Purpose Driven Life one hundred

Illustrated Devotions for Children. This will be a great thing

to give kids or to grandkids, and at the same time,

your support continues to help us tell people all around

the world about God's love and God's purpose for them.

Will send you The Purpose Driven Life one hundred Illustrated

Devotions for Children today as our way of saying thanks

for your gift to help Daily Hope take the Hope

of Jesus to people around the world. Be sure to

get a copy for all the children God has placed

in your life, kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and kids in

your neighborhood. They will all be blessed by this amazing resource.

Go to pastorick dot com right now to get your copy,

or you could just call eight hundred six hundred five

thousand and four. There's only three days left to get

this great resource, so don't wait. That's Pastorick dot com

or eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Thank

you so much for your support, and be sure to

let us know that you listen to Pastor Rick's Daily

Hope on the radio. Join us next time as we

look into God's word for our daily hope. This program

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