“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.” Psalm 107:1(NLT)
To ‘appreciate’ is to recognize the worth and good qualities of someone or something and to enjoy them. It is to show gratitude or thankfulness for someone or something. When it comes to pleasing God in our spiritual lives, our show of gratitude or thankfulness becomes so much more important. It is God’s requirement that we do so. 1Thessalonians 5:18 tells us, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 1:3 tells us that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven because of what Christ has done for us. Now, we have the great privilege and honor to be a blessing to others. We are called by God to leaving a legacy of His love in our families, loved ones and friends, and on the whole world. It is one of the ways in which we show Him our appreciation for all His wonderful blessings that we have received.
The greatest way that we show our appreciation to God is to be obedient to His Word. Sometimes, this means that we must have a change of heart regarding appreciating others. Appreciating those who are nice and kind toward us is easy, but it can be challenging to appreciate those that are not so nice and kind. It could be that these are the individuals that God would like us to pray for and demonstrate His love towards.
As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we must appreciate our mission as conduits of God’s love. We must also show our appreciation to God by letting Him work through us as we are obedient to pray for and be a blessing to those He has placed in our lives. To appreciate is to have a willingness and openness to leave a legacy of God’s love in the way He directs and instructs us to. We must pray for this work, and sometimes, we must be willing and ready to change our own hearts about others so that we can do God’s work through His unconditional love.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“How Do We Appreciate”, written by Vince Mack for Springfield Fellowship, Inc. ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!
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