1 Thessalonians 5:18
If you have been struggling to know the Will of God for your life, you need struggle no longer… 1st Thessalonians 5:18 makes it perfectly clear that the Will of God for every life is exactly the same: we are all to thank Him for everything that happens in our lives…
How many circumstances??? Yes. ALL Circumstances… That means Good AND Bad circumstances…
And Yes, it also means that you should Thank Him for the most unfair, the most trying, the most unjust, of situations in your life…
And Just Why is that??? Well it’s because God, The Father, Loved You Enough to send His Only Begotten Son to die for you…to provide for you the way to escape your problems in this life, and throughout the eternity of the next.
It means you must thank Him even when you cannot mean it, and you have the direct opposite of gratitude in your heart.
But that would be lying to God, you might say… After all, if you have bitterness and anger and frustration filling your heart, how can you thank God for what put those feelings there???
Obedience is the answer.
Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
If it is the Will of God that we thank Him in all circumstances, and obedience is better than sacrifice, then we should give thanks for all that comes against us, believing God in Romans 8:28, that He works all things to the good of those that love him and are the called according to His purpose (and everyone is called, because it is His desire that not one should perish, but that all would come to repentance — 2 Peter 3:9).
Obedience counts tremendously with God. So, even when we are mad at God, if we thank Him, and then asked Him to grow us spiritually to the point we can actually be grateful when we speak the words of thanks in grudging obedience… well…
Blessings follow obedience to God; problems lose their impact, stress falls away, better decisions are reached, and God, Himself, strengthens us, fills us with wisdom instead of panic, and then rewards the obedience with blessings we can seldom image…
I urge you to begin thanking Him in your adversities, and your anguish, and to begin to enjoy the power from on high in your every circumstance which will accompany such obedience.
This scripture was an integral part of my miraculous transformation… once I began to obey Him in this, He opened my spiritual eyes and I begin to see and understand what He was doing, in allowing me to go through very hard times — sometimes it is for my own growth, and often it is for those who are struggling, for them to have an example of how to endure and overcome… but always there is blessing in the midst, and reward on the other side of the darkest of times, when we obey Him in this way.
