"Do not be anxious about anything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Philippians 4:6 NIV)
Philippians is a wonderful book in which I have enjoyed spending time this week. Every verse I have chosen has, at some point, met a very special need in my life, this one probably more than any other. As a teenager, I heard sermons on being thankful even in tough times, and as a young married adult I began to apply the lessons I learned. Now, it seems there is almost a daily challenge to be thankful in all circumstances. I try to remember to thank God for the difficult, as well as the good.
There are not many stories in the Bible where people returned to Jesus to thank Him. The story in Luke 17 about the healing of the ten lepers is one of the few, but also one of the most vivid. Jesus healed ten men of leprosy and only one returned to thank Him. Only one came back to rejoice with Jesus in his healing. I am sure they were all telling everyone about what had happened, but only one made the effort to return to the source of the miracle. How many times does this happen today? How many times have I let an opportunity to thank Jesus slip by, when I got caught up in telling the good news to everyone else? It is good, and right to tell everyone, but we need to remember to acknowledge Jesus, and let Him know that we remember He is the source of all good things.
The whole purpose in taking our requests to Jesus is so we will remember the source of the answer. The Living Bible puts part of Phil. 4:6 this way, "Don’t forget to thank Him for the answers." Thankfulness for what God has done in our lives puts us in the proper spirt to make new requests,* and then we are ready to thank Him again.
"Eucharista" is the Greek word for thanksgiving and it is translated literally as "giving of thanks."
Thanksgiving is a gift we can offer the "giver of all gifts."
"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving." (Colossians 4:2 NAS)
*Wycliff Bible Commentary
Jo
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