As we continue to study the subject of GIVING THANKS, let's start tonight by refocusing on the main points of this series before moving on to something new. The first point is that a GRATEFUL attitude connects us by FAITH to the GRACE of God. Another way of saying it is that THANKSGIVING empowers us with the FAVOR of God so we can ALWAYS be triumphant in Christ. Certainly God deserves our THANKS for everything He does in our lives, but there's a greater purpose: THANKSGIVING attracts more GRACE and GRACE through FAITH is what we need for victory. We've used many scriptures in the previous articles to establish this point but here are two of them that will help you get oriented if you missed some of those previous articles:

Psalm 50:23 - "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me..."

1 Samuel 2:30 - "...those who honor Me I will honor..."

On the other hand the second point is that IN-gratitude disconnects us from GRACE and opens the door to the destroyer (1 Corinthians 10:10). It dishonors God and serves to DARKEN our hearts (inner thinking) towards the things of the Spirit resulting in futility in life (Romans 1:21). Futility here means profitless or vanity or emptiness. That's exactly what happened to the Israelites: they were UN-grateful and God denied most of them access to the Promised Land. From their example it ought to be abundantly clear that God doesn't like IN-gratitude, but the TRUTH is it's more prevalent today than ever.

When the Apostle Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, he listed prophetically a number of highly undesirable characteristics to describe end-time folks and one of them was UNGRATEFULNESS (2 Timothy 3:2). He listed it right along with such things as lovers of self, covetousness, boastfulness, arrogance, reviling and a lot of other unrighteous things (2 Timothy 3:2-9). Now here we all are, probably in the midst of those last days and if you'll take a moment occasionally to look around with this subject in mind, it'll be difficult to not notice the advanced level of IN-gratitude that prevails EVERYWHERE including inside the Body of Christ. God has ALREADY released ALL His GRACE for us to connect to because of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross but most people are so wrapped up in worrying about and resenting their problems they fail to take notice of all the great things God is doing in their lives. Or worse, they blame Him for their problems and in their anger have disconnected themselves from His GRACE.     

The Principle of Magnification

God has designed us to be a THANKFUL people. Indeed, THANKSGIVING is supposed to be a key part of Christian life and that's why there're so many scriptures instructing us to be THANKFUL and GRATEFUL. It's for our own good because it keeps us connected to the presence and the grace and the favor and the rest of God. In line with this I want to bring into our discussion tonight another principle by way of Psalm 69:30:

"I will praise the name of God with song and MAGNIFY Him with THANKSGIVING."

The English words magnify and magnified are mentioned in Scripture a total of some 40 times. When we see them in our Bibles most of us have a tendency to just gloss over what they mean without giving it a lot of thought. But conceptually MAGNIFY is a really important word. It means simply to make something larger like a magnifying glass does. Whatever we look at through a magnifying glass becomes larger. So when I MAGNIFY the Lord I make Him larger in my life. If I move the magnifying glass away from Him and look at something else, those other things become larger.

We should want the Lord to be as gigantic as we can possibly get Him to be in our lives, right? I want to MAGNIFY Him, to make Him larger, not all my circumstances. And look how I can MAGNIFY Him: I can MAGNIFY the Lord, I can increase His influence and involvement in my life by GIVING THANKS. Once again my THANKSGIVING empowers me to overcome my problems and get the victory. Yes, we should MAGNIFY the Lord because He's worthy and He's Creator God. But we can also MAGNIFY Him so we'll able to enjoy life even in the midst of all the storms.

The Decision of What to Magnify

In that same letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul also prophesied that in the last days there would be perilous times (2 Timothy 3:1). Most people would probably agree that we've been living through some pretty perilous times these last few years but there've always been perilous times to deal with and whether or not these are the perilous last days is not the point for this article.

The point is that our quality of life is going to always depend directly on what we're MAGNIFYING because we're always going to be dealing with problems. We have a choice to make of either focusing on God and MAGNIFYING Him or focusing on the problems until they occupy all our thoughts and attention. In our financial counseling ministry we talk to a lot of Believers with financial problems. Many of them have been focusing on their problems and have become discouraged because they haven't experienced enough progress to keep them happy. A number of others though are focusing on MAGNIFYING God and trusting Him to deliver them out of their tribulations just as He's promised.

Are we going to focus on our problems and MAGNIFY them or are we going to focus on God? If we MAGNIFY our problems we'll be fearful and worried and anxious and lose sleep. Those emotions come from none other than our enemy the Destroyer. So if we focus on our problems all the time, we wind up MAGNIFYING the devil instead of God. What do you think and talk about most of the time? Are you complaining about your problems or THANKING God for all the good things that are coming to you every day including the way out of all those problems? Are you even looking for the good things? They're all around you but most of us haven't taken the time to look for them because we're so focused on our problems.

Friend, by our THANKSGIVING, by our GRATITUDE we can make God larger, more significant, more influential and more involved in our lives and surely that's the way we ought to want it. Or we can make something else larger. It's a decision that we make. If we decide to MAGNIFY God we have to first stop complaining and grumbling about everything. We have to stop blaming and being angry with God for stuff He didn't even do.

And second we have to start GIVING THANKS to God at every opportunity. Do you THANK Him for the tribulation you're involved in? No, it didn't come from Him anyway. Rather, you THANK Him for the way out of the tribulation that He's about to bring about in your life and you thank Him for taking all your anxiety on Him (1 Peter 5:7). Your problems are not supposed to be yours; you shouldn't be taking ownership of them because they're His. They belong to Him, Jesus died so He could take them off your hands. Why do we insist on MAGNIFYING them and keeping them for ourselves when we don't have to?

I will be the first to agree that making the decision is a lot easier than sticking with it. The Flesh fights us every step of the way and wants to solve all the problems itself instead of trusting the Lord to do it. But if you're willing to try, the Holy Spirit will show up to help you. As you make the Flesh stop complaining and start looking around you for all the good things to THANK God for, you'll find it increasingly easier to be sincerely GRATEFUL as a way of life. It'll become increasingly easier to MAGNIFY God instead of your problems and the Word promises that by your THANKSGIVING you can MAGNIFY God. We can't MAGNIFY God and our problems at the same time so the more we come to MAGNIFY God the less we'll be MAGNIGYING the devil and all our problems. Friend, THANKSGIVING is something absolutely outstanding that God has given us to help push us into VICTORY. Use it as He intended and watch your FAITH grow stronger. As your FAITH grows stronger you'll connect to God's GRACE and your former problems won't even matter. Take the Word for what it says and watch it change your life!