Thursday, November 26, 2015

An Attitude Of Gratitude

"And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.  So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.  And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ."
Acts 5:40-42 (NKJV)

The perspective you view things with is very important.  It has been said that people view a glass of water as either being half full or half empty.  The contents of the glass are exactly the same for both people but the perspective the glass is seen with is different.  Our attitude is based on our perspective and people with a positive perspective will have an overall better attitude than people with a negative perspective.  If we look for the positive aspects of things rather than the negative it will help us to be thankful and have an attitude of gratitude.

In Acts 5 we see that the disciples were put into prison by some religious leaders but God miraculously delivered the disciples.  Then God told the disciples to go to the temple and teach the people, so they did, and then the disciples were arrested again!  This time the religious leaders were so upset that they wanted to kill the disciples, but instead they just beat them and told the disciples not to speak in the name of Jesus anymore.  When the disciples were set free they went away rejoicing!  The disciples saw a positive aspect in their situation and rejoiced and gave thanks to God.

Many people focus on their problems rather than on the good things in their lives.  This is seen in their unthankful, ungrateful attitude.  God wants us to have an attitude of gratitude and to be thankful in every situation and circumstance of life. No matter how bad things might appear to be, or how bad things really are, if we look a little bit we can find something to be thankful for, just like the disciples did.  We all need to guard ourselves from the ungrateful, unthankful attitude that is so prevalent today.  By being thankful for the things we do have we can keep an attitude of gratitude.

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