blessing to me, but in first Thessalonians chapter five in verse 18, we read a command here in scripture. And it's something that every one of us, we need to grab a hold of. There are many commands in this passage here, but first Thessalonians five 18, very, very, um, a familiar verse here. And it's very straightforward. It leaves no question to what we are to do and how we are to live. what our attitude should be, not only in the good times, but also in the bad times. And notice here in 1 Thessalonians 5.18, the Bible says this, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Everything. We've all been through trials. We've all been through hardships. We've all been through some things that we wondered, am I ever going to get through this? And then we've also all had mountaintop experiences as well. We've had things that have gone on in our life and boy, we're excited about it. We're thankful for those things. When everything the Bible says, give thanks. I'm going to talk about just a few things today and that we as believers should be thankful for this time of year where we consider this the holiday season, do we not? We've got Halloween, we've got Thanksgiving, we've got Christmas, we've got New Year's, all of these things that are going on. And in this world, those are some major holidays, but Thanksgiving is the least of those in this world's mind. Boy, it gets blown right over. And we're going to talk about giving thanks here this morning. Let's go to Lord in prayer and we'll get started. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you today and Lord, we thank you for who you are. Thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you, dear God, for the opportunity we have to own a copy of your word. And Lord, you say here in everything, give thanks. And I pray, Lord, that you would help us to be a thankful people or we know that that will dictate how we live. and Lord, how we just praise you for all that you're doing. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, here in this time of year, many times we go from Walmart, of course, being decorated for Halloween from about July until about the beginning of October, and then everything goes on clearance, and then Christmas stuff starts coming out. into Walmart, sometimes even earlier than October, but you walk in there and boy, there's inflatable Santa Claus all over the place. There's all of these reindeer and sleighs and all of these things all over Walmart. You go in there and as my dad says, my mom's house looks like, it looks like Christmas just threw up on everything, amen? It's everywhere. You say, that's disgusting, but it's true. It's all over Walmart. But there's this one little aisle that you may see in Walmart that has some turkeys and some maybe some dinnerware that says something about thankfulness. But it's this little tiny area. Why is that? Because we live in what I truthfully believe is the most unthankful world than it's ever been. Our spirits are not ones that are filled with thankfulness. We are always looking for something more. Of course, we know that that the Christmas holiday is not to be one that is only about all of these gifts and things that we may receive during that time. As believers, we know that it's a to celebrate the greatest gift that was ever given. That's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ coming in and being born in a manger and putting himself, robing himself in flesh and to live and to die on the cross of Calvary, to pay for the sins of the world, to rise again on the third day and be seated in heaven. He gave us the opportunity to be saved. We celebrate the birth of our Savior during this time. But to everyone else, It's just about those things that they'll receive. Why? Because this world is not filled with hearts of thankfulness. Many people who don't even have the word thank you in their vocabulary, you do something to help them and they think that it's something that they deserve. They never say thank you. Why is that? Because people are ungrateful because of the pride of man. We don't see ungrateful hearts only in unbelievers. Unfortunately, many times we see it in believers. as well, but church, we should be a thankful people. So I want to preach to you a message this morning entitled this. Am I thankful? Am I thankful? Thankfulness, of course, seems to be a lost art today. Warren Wiersbe illustrated this problem in his commentary on Colossians, and he told of a ministerial student in Evanston, Illinois, who was part of a life-saving squad. And in 1860, a ship went aground on the shore of Lake Michigan near Evanston, and Edward Spencer waded again and again into the frigid waters to rescue 17 passengers. In the process his health was permanently damaged and some years later at his funeral it was noted that not one person that he rescued ever said thank you. He rescued them and his body paid the price for that and not one of them said thank you. As we read this verse here today in 1 Thessalonians we see that it is a command that says in everything give thanks. Now we would look at the verse before that when it says pray without ceasing and we would say praise the Lord for the opportunity that we have to go boldly to the throne of grace and we can pray no matter where we are or who we're with the Lord hears our prayers and we would say praise the Lord for that. And we may even look at this next verse and say, in everything give thanks. And, and, uh, we may be on a roll and giving thanks for what, uh, for what God's done for us. And then from that mountaintop, it seems like we're plunged into the valley. And all of a sudden the, in everything give thanks is forgotten about. If we are to give thanks for everything, that means that we are to be thankful no matter where we are. The good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet, we are to give thanks for everything. We've all had great things happen to us and we will say, well, that's such a blessing from God. But then when something bad happens, we get upset at the situation and we blame it on God. thankful that the Lord gives us the blessings each and every day. As I've mentioned many times, His mercies are new every morning, the Bible says, in everything we are to give thanks. Many times we will go through something that's a mountaintop experience, but then we get bitter when we're down in the valley. But you know as well as I know that if you've been through anything in your life that is that's a trial, anything that is toiling, if you will, if you've been through that darker than dark circumstance, you know that the mountaintop, the light at the end of that tunnel is sweeter because of what you've just gone through. But boy, we complain about what we go through. We complain about those things. But the Bible says, in everything, give thanks. If it says, in everything give thanks, and we see that that is a command from God, then we must also see that if we are an ungrateful people, an unthankful people, then that is disobedience to God's word as well. We must see that we are taught to give thanks and and and when we do not give thanks we are living in sin ingratitude is a sin. So I want to preach this message. Am I thankful. Give us some things that we should be thankful about today. I want you to look at Second Corinthians chapter 9 if you will. Second Corinthians chapter 9. Notice what the Bible says here. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Unspeakable. There's a hymn that is saying it's joy unspeakable and full of glory. Well how can you have that? by trusting in Christ as your personal Savior. We as believers, first of all, this morning, we should be thankful for salvation. None of us understand exactly all of the parts of salvation. We don't understand why the God of heaven would send his son, who is a spotless lamb, to die in our place. for those of us we did not we did not deserve to be to be bought with a price we did not deserve to have the opportunity to go to heaven we did not deserve to have the Son of God come down and shed his blood for us I don't understand why God did that except for John 3 16 when it says for God so loved There are some things that we'll do out of love for our children and for our family, for your spouse. You'll do some things that you wouldn't wake up in the morning and say, hey, I can't wait to do this. But when something needs to be done out of love, we'll do it for the ones that we love. It's hard for us to believe that a holy God would love an unholy people that much. We don't understand it, but can I help us out this morning? We should be thankful for it. As we read this verse, we see something here that is not a suggestion. It is a command there in 1 Thessalonians 5, 18. This is the will of God concerning you. We should be thankful for salvation. That word there in that verse that we just read, thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. I want you to look at that word unspeakable. It's only used three times in the entire Bible. And when it's used here, here's what it has the idea of. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. It has the idea of being completely baffled by the thought. When you think about salvation. When you think about what God has done. For you. And I think about what God has done for me. It should do just that, it should baffle us. Why would God do that? How could God love me that much? I don't care who you are or how you were raised, how long you've been saved or what you've done for God. It should always baffle you that the God of heaven loves you enough to send his son to die on the cross for you. It should. When you think about the ways that we've sinned against the very God of heaven and yet he still died for us to pay our sin debt. We cannot help but to be thankful for that. Think about it once you look at Psalm 106 if you will. Psalm 106 you read this the other evening. Psalm 106, and notice verse 1. It says, Praise ye the Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Praise God for his mercy. We only have the opportunity to be saved because of the mercy of God. That's it. It's nothing based on what we've done or how good we've been or, or, uh, how, how good of a life that, uh, that, that we, uh, say that we have lived a salvation is a gift from God. We cannot earn salvation. Uh, we do not deserve a salvation, but yet God made it available to us. You say, why would he do that simply because he loves us? That's the only reason, uh, in first I'm going to read you a couple of verses here this morning. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24 and 25. The Bible says this, who his own, I'm sorry, who his own self bear our sins in his body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned into the shepherd and bishop of your souls. We were in the position that we were in before salvation because of sin that we had committed for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous. No, not one. It was because of our sin that we were separated between or from from God. It was our Well, well, my parents did this and my grandparents said that you were born into sin. Doesn't matter what they've done. But God loved you so much. That he said, I'm going to die for that center. I'm going to die for that, that wretched center there, and that's me. And that's you. When's the last time? Maybe we bowed our knee in prayer or maybe we're just going throughout our day. And we said this, God, thank you for saving me. Thank you. Because you know what that's going to cause your mind to do? It's going to cause your mind to immediately think about where you would be if he hadn't have saved you. Put some things into perspective, doesn't it? hellfire for all eternity, or a guaranteed home in heaven. I'll take this side, amen. And praise the Lord for His mercy that He gives us the opportunity to trust Him as our personal Savior. I'm so thankful that as a seven-year-old boy, I trusted Christ with my salvation. I repented of my sins because I knew I was on my way to hell. It should never get old to us thanking God for our salvation and what He's done for us. Praise the Lord. The Bible says that we have an advocate with the Father. That advocate is not an apostle. It's not a priest. It's not Mary. It's not Joseph. We'll talk about, of course, Mary and Joseph as we go throughout the, uh, this Christmas season that we're going into here. And they were wonderful people. No doubt. They were, uh, used by God in a great way, but they are not our advocates. It's the Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Look over at first John chapter two, if you will. First John chapter two. First John chapter two and verse one. Notice what is mentioned here in this verse. We'll read verse one and two. 1 John 2, verse 1 and 2, Notice, we have an advocate with the Father, who is that? Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. You know, when you read that, and also for the sins of the whole world, you know who that includes? It includes me and it includes you. He is our advocate because of his sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. We can be thankful for salvation and true thankfulness will drive us into action. There are many people who are down and out. They have no way to provide for themselves, if you will. But can I help us here tonight? They don't have to. to do any good works to be saved. They may say, well, I'm bound at my house or I just don't have the health. I can't go out and do good things. I can't do this or do that, that all these people are saying I have to do to be saved. Well, just a few weeks ago, we looked at when the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ went to the pool of Bethesda. There was an awful lot of people there that could do nothing. They were waiting for someone to come. They were waiting for the stirring of the water. There's no way they could do good works to get themselves where they were trying to get to. But then Jesus came. Good works cannot get you to heaven. But praise the Lord, we have an advocate with the Father. Praise the Lord that the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, He came and He died on the cross for you and for me. And if you've trusted Christ as your personal Savior, understand when you pray to God and when God sees you, He doesn't see you in your form of unrighteousness. He sees you in the form of His Son. He sees that righteousness that has been placed upon you. And when the Holy God of heaven looks at you, He doesn't see us for what we what we were before. No, he sees us in the picture of his son. That's the advocate that we have with the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Boy, we should be thankful for that. There are many people who. Go throughout this world and they think that it's well, the way that I get to heaven is by helping enough people. Helping people is a great thing, but the way you get to heaven is trusting Christ as your personal Savior. Nothing more and nothing less. No matter how much we have given or how much we've helped others without Christ, understand we are an outcast. We are the ones down and out. We've been given so much. We've been given eternal life. We've been spared from hellfire for all eternity, and we should be thankful for that. And if we are thankful for that, then that thankfulness should drive us to tell others about the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Isn't it true that we talk about what makes us happy? What brings us joy? Boy, if you talk to children this time of year, you don't have to talk to them for very long. They get a couple of sentences out of their mouth and all of a sudden they're talking about their Christmas list. Amen? They've got this that they want and they've got this circled in the catalogs and all of those things. They know exactly what they want. They're excited about it and they'll tell a complete stranger about what they want. for Christmas. That complete stranger has no idea where they live. They don't know who they are or anything like that. But they're going to tell them. Why? Because they're excited about it. It's something that brings joy to a child's heart. What brings joy to our hearts? What are we telling people about? Those of you who are grandparents in here, Many times you'll show pictures of your grandchildren to a complete stranger standing in the line at Walmart. Hate to break it to you, but they don't care what little so and so looks like. Amen. You say, I don't care. I'm excited about it. Amen. And you're going to tell them about it. And that's, that's a great thing. Boy, we talk about what we're excited about. It brings us joy. Look at first Peter chapter one, if you will. First Peter chapter one. First Peter chapter one and verse eight. Notice what the Bible says here. Whom having not seen you love in whom though now you see him not yet believing you rejoice with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. that salvation should bring us joy. We should be thankful for that. Maybe you're here this morning, you say, preacher, I've never trusted Christ as my personal savior, but I need to be saved today. You can be, I can guarantee you that you will be thankful for your salvation. Once you trust Christ as your personal savior, you'll feel the weight that's lifted off of you. You'll know that you never have to go to hell, that you're on your way to heaven. You'll be thankful for that. But you must trust Him. First of all, we as believers, we should be thankful for our salvation. We would say, well, I'm thankful for that. But are we telling others? Notice number two, we should be thankful for the opportunity to serve through the local church. We should be thankful for that. Look at 1 Timothy 1, if you will. 1 Timothy 1. First Timothy chapter one and verse 12. Notice here, the apostle Paul, of course, writing to young Timothy about what the Lord has called him to do. First Timothy 1, 12, it says, and I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me for that he counted me faithful. Notice, putting me into the ministry. Everyone who's trusted Christ as their personal Savior has a ministry to fulfill. You have something to do. There are many people that go around this earth that we live on and they'll say things like this, well, I just don't have a purpose. Well, the Bible says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. The Bible declares that each and every one of us were made for a purpose. You have a purpose. There's a lot of different things going on in this world today. Some great people, especially in our country, that are preaching the Word of God and they're trying to reach into these groups where people struggle with suicide and those types of things. And you know what they do? They declare from the Word of God how God has a plan for that person's life. Because when a person gets to the point where they think to themselves, well, nobody loves me and nobody cares about me and this world would be better off without me and all of that. When they get to that point, there is no hope, there is no joy, there is no satisfaction there. And it's only through the word of God that their mind can be turned into the point where they say, wait a second, I was formed by the very hand of God, I have power. I have something that I can do and they trust Christ as their personal Savior and they go on living in the purpose that God has caused them to live in. It's a wonderful thing to see that switch. But there's an awful lot of people who trusted Christ as their personal Savior. Maybe many years ago, maybe it was at a young age, or maybe you were never taught to serve the Lord through the local church. Understand, we should thank God for the opportunity we have to be a part of a local church and to serve God through this place. It should be important to us. We work together. Paul was writing this letter to young Timothy, a man who was pastoring a church here, and the Apostle Paul was trying to encourage him, and he said that he thanked God for putting him on the into the ministry, every single believer. If you say, I want to know what my purpose is in this world. Well, there may be different phases to your purpose, but a great place to start is what God told every one of us to do. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. You want to fulfill God's purpose, at least the beginning of it for your life. On your way out the door, grab a handful of those tracts and give every single one of them out before you come back into this place. You'll be glad you did. You're giving people the gospel of Jesus Christ. We receive our marching orders from Christ and by trusting in Christ we have the opportunity to work for him. Every believer should be involved in and through the local church but in order to serve through the local church we know that there's some steps that must be followed there. Of course being saved and being baptized and being added to the added to the church not just mere attendance but by serving the Lord through the church. Every one of us should be serving the Lord through the local church. Praise the Lord that we have a growing church. But you know what happens when you have more people? You need more people. It just is what it is. It's just an amazing thing to see how the Lord is working and how the Lord is growing this place. We need servants of God. And you may say, well, I just don't know where God wants me to serve. Well, jump in with both feet. You'll figure it out. Amen. You definitely will. Think about this for a moment. We have the opportunity to work for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. people today that are working their way up in politics. And of course they will start out maybe in a courthouse, and they work their way up through the legal system and all of that. And their goal is to get to the next step, and the next step. And before long they've got their law degree, and they've got all of these things, American Politics degree, and they are trying to work their way up. And right now there is a cabinet that is being formed, and the ones that get called for that presidential cabinet, here is what they would say, They've worked their life to be in the position they're being called to be in. By a man. Where we've trusted in Christ as our personal savior. And he desires for us to do something greater than anyone in Washington, D.C. could ever do through the way of politics. The White House cannot save a soul. But the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ can. We have marching orders from God himself. As Sunday school classes grow, we need teachers, we need workers, we need all of those things. You see many churches that stay the same for years. There's no growth there. That's an issue because we understand that in life, something that is alive is always growing. It's always reproducing. But many times we are just fine with our church being stagnant, with our lives being stagnant. Why is that? Because many believers may say that they're thankful for salvation, but they're not thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord. They say, well, preacher, I'm just too busy. Well, every one of us are busy, but we make time for what we desire to have time for. We may say that we desire to serve the Lord, we may say that with our lips, but the truth is what we have a desire for is going to be seen in what we're doing. We should be working for God. I'm thankful for the opportunity that I have to be involved in the local New Testament church. It's not something that I take lightly and we see people serving in the Bible through the local church. It's a wonderful thing to have a body of believers, a family through the local church to surround each and every one of us in our mountaintops and also in our valleys. It's a great thing to know that when we're going through a hard time, we have a group of people that we can call and say, would you pray for me? When we lose someone that's close to us, we know that there's comfort in the church family. Are we thankful for the opportunity to serve through the local church? I can remember when me and my wife first got married, we were, of course, each working a job and we were trying to make ends meet and do all we could to provide for ourselves and all of those things. And we were a couple of young people that were on our own and boy, we're gonna conquer the world, amen? We were volunteering for any overtime that we could and all of that, had bills to pay and one of those things to be done. You know what happened in the very beginning of our marriage? We had very little time that we were giving to the Lord. Very little time. Oh, then the first child comes along. Boy, everything's easy after that, amen? No, you're even busier than you were. You know, we came up with excuse after excuse after excuse on why we couldn't do certain things for God. And we were busy. In man's eyes, they were valid excuses. Well, there's just no time. Both working full-time jobs. We've got a child now. We're just too busy. But it never ceases to amaze me When the Lord got a hold of our heart through different circumstances and we said, you know what, we're going to make time to serve God in this way and in that way, we got involved in the bus ministry and we were teaching a Sunday school class and then we were teaching the teen class and we were helping in all of these different things. Wife was in nursery, I was helping with the counting after the service and all of these different things that we were doing. And what I found was this. We were still doing everything that we did before. We were just doing them at different times. Why? Because God's will was important to us. Oh, we were still busy, busier than ever, we could say. But we had more joy. Why? Because we were truly thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord through the local church. We were able to go out and knock on doors, able to visit our bus route, able to do these things and see the Lord making a difference in people's lives. Yes, we were busy, but once we were truly thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord through the local church that we were a part of, we saw that God wanted to do great things, exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think. Before that, we would say, oh, we're thankful for the local church. But once we got involved, we were truly thankful. Why? Because we were putting it into action. It was more than just our words. We should be thankful for the opportunity to serve. And then thirdly, I want us to see this this morning. Notice, if we're thankful, we should be expressing that gratitude. I want you to look at Psalm 69, if you will. Psalm chapter 69. Psalm chapter 69. Verse 30 and 31. Just verse 30. Psalm 69, verse 30. Notice what the psalmist says here. I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. Every one of us, we know that the Bible says that of course if we will not cry out, a rock will cry out in our place. Some of us have said and all of us have heard, well I'm not going to allow a rock to cry out in my place. I'm going to praise the Lord. I'm going to praise Him with my voice. Notice what this says here, and we'll magnify Him with thanksgiving. When's the last time you magnified the Lord? because of thankfulness. How does a person express gratitude? Of course, we can express gratitude with the words that we say, but gratitude is also expressed in deeds. As we study the Bible, we see many signs of thankfulness. We see the alabaster box that was very, very expensive, this ointment that was there, and it was broken to give to the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to be poured upon him. This woman desired to express her gratitude towards Christ, thing that she owned at the time, what was she willing to do? She was willing to give it to God. Why? Because she was thankful. She was willing to express that gratitude. The young man who was living in the tombs after he was healed by Christ, he was told, go and tell the people what happened. And that's exactly what he did. We are told to let the redeemed of the Lord say so. When the Lord healed the lepers, only one returned to thank him. That's a problem. When only 10% truly thank God for what he's done. Got these 10 lepers and boy they're all healed and thank the Lord that he's healed their bodies. They had a death sentence upon them. Their body was literally being eaten and no doubt they had lost some extremities maybe fingers or toes maybe arms and legs, those types of things, whatever it may have been, this flesh eating disease that was there. And boy, they're they're happy about it. And they're running to tell the priest and they want to go see their family and they want to be involved in what they were doing before. They could now be there with their wife and their children, maybe their parents and and maybe grandchildren that they've never met. And they're so thankful for the opportunity to be cleansed. But yet they never express that gratitude. Boy, that's sad. Many times we'll come into a service like this or maybe on Wednesday night and we're sharing some prayer requests and we'll say, please pray for this one or please pray for that one, please pray for me as I'm going through this, whatever it may be. And boy, we're quick to raise our hand with a prayer request. But when the Lord answers that prayer, no one hears about it. We should be just as happy about the opportunity to share God, answering our prayers as we are for the opportunity to come boldly before the throne of grace with our request. You know what? Being thankful for God's answer to prayer is going to do in your life. The next time something happens in your mind, it's going to trigger the switch that says, you know what? Last time I was going through something hard, I prayed about and the Lord answered that prayer. So the Lord can take me through this as well. But many times it happens like this, Lord, going through this health issue or this financial difficulty or whatever this may be, Lord, I really need your help with this. Lord, would you please help me to get through this? And the Lord answers your prayer and we never even say thank you. We never use that to edify the brethren. Boy, something happens in our life and we're quick to pick up that phone and I need prayer. I need you to go before the throne of grace for me. I need my church family praying for me. And the Lord answers that prayer and the same phone calls were not made. Lord, help us to show that we truly are thankful. We should be grateful to God. We should be a grateful people. One man was telling a story after a funeral service for a good friend and he said this, I wish he were alive to hear all of the great things that were said about him. I wish he knew how much he impacted people. Isn't that the truth in many funeral services that we attend? Boy, there's great things that are said that that person may have never heard while they were alive. Oh, we miss them when they're gone. but we don't have time to visit them and tell them while they are alive. Why are we slow to express gratitude? It's because of our pride. When we have a prayer request, and I understand that there are prayer requests and there's some very severe things, and I'm not trying to discourage anyone from sharing a prayer request with one another. We are told to pray for one another. It's a great thing to do. But the reality is this, when we call, Or we ask someone, we're talking to them, and we say, I need you to pray for me. This is what I'm going through. It gets them thinking about. The pain that we're in, the tragedy that we're going through. When we're expressing gratitude for how the Lord answered the prayer, understand this, that's giving glory to him and is taking the eyes off of us. You know what our flesh wants to do? It wants to keep it right here. And many times we live our life wanting people to look at us. If that's how we live, that's not a heart of gratefulness. It says here in that verse that we just read, I will magnify Him with thanksgiving. Pride can have no place in the heart of a grateful person. We should be giving thanks always. Can I ask you a question here today? Are you a grateful person? When you ask this question to yourself, am I thankful? Am I thankful? Are we a grateful people? This world is an ungrateful place but that doesn't mean that we should be ungrateful. We are told as believers in everything give thanks. Why? For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. I don't know what God's will is for my life to be a grateful person. In everything give thanks for this is the will of God. Are you thankful? Every day. Lord, you've given me another day. I know I've got pain, I've got some difficulties, I've got some trials that I'm going through, but Lord, you've given me another day. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you another day. Lord, I don't understand why I'm going through this. I don't understand why you've got these things happening in my life, but Lord, help me to be like Job who said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Lord, thank you for the opportunity that I have to trust in you, to hold on to you. As we sang those songs earlier on Christ the solid rock I stand, praise the Lord that he is our rock and we should thank him for that. even in our times in which it feels as though we physically, we may be losing our footing. It may seem like that mentally speaking, Lord, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but Lord, thank you for being that solid rock for me. Thank you, Lord. For holding me. Are we a thankful people? We need to ask the Lord to create in us a thankful heart. We've heard it said many times, Lord, create in me a clean heart. We need a thankful heart as well. We need to be a thankful people and let's be willing to exercise that thankfulness. As we go throughout this season of Christmas that we're in, rather than being focused on what's going to be given? How about we focus on what's already been given to the world? When someone is talking about all the things that they want to get and all of those, and I'm talking even with children, make sure that you have tracks on you, have those things so that we can, we may be standing in line and there may be a mom or a dad and they've got their children there and they may be talking about the things that they want for Christmas, and they may be talking about the busyness of life and all of those things. Take that moment. If we're truly grateful for what God has given to us, we should want to share that with others and take that moment and say, can I tell you about a great gift that I received from God himself? And it can be something as simple as just handing them the track. There's some Bible verses there that'll tell you how to receive that gift for yourself as well. Let's be giving those things out. Let's be a thankful people as we came off of Thanksgiving and we're going into this time of giving, if you will. Let's not forget why we can be so thankful. Because God has given us so much. I want us to ask ourselves that question. Am I thankful? You know, when we truly find out if we're thankful, you know what the true test of that really is? If we're really thankful for what God is doing and how God answers prayers when He tells us no. We may be thankful for God's provision in our life, God's guidance, but when God says no, then and only then Will we be brought face to face with the decision on whether or not we're thankful for God leading in our life? We should be thankful when he says yes, thankful when he says no, and sometimes it's not right now. See, all through life, this area of thankfulness, this principle of thankfulness is seen all throughout our lives. But let's ask ourselves that question. Am I thankful?