Grasping GratitudeSample

Desperate Worship

What is the quickest way to deploy gratitude into one’s life?

Worship! Praise! Adoration!

There’s an anagram that I like to use in worship:

ACTS:

Adoration

Confession

Thanksgiving

Supplications

Adoration is giving God the blessing He deserves of your affection toward Him right out the gate of approach. He must be told how Great He is because, let’s get real, “How great IS our God?” If we all got what we deserved, we’d be destroyed immediately.

Confession (along with repentance) gets us cleaned up and ready for our needs to be met. (Psa. 66:18, Psa. 51:10)

Approaching God with an unclean heart, mind, and/or spirit, will not engage His acting on our behalf, We must first make things right with Him.

Thanksgiving helps us tune in to a better way to approach Him with our requests, and we get a better response. You are not set up for the most successful worship without purposeful thanksgiving to God for anything and everything. Good and bad.

Supplications are your requests to God. It’s bringing Him what/who is in your heart that you want Him to act upon. Big and small, He wants it all.

Worship isn’t just singing. Worship may be:

*Raised hands in thanks and gratitude to Him.

*Singing a song to Him.

*Creating something with the focus being on God the entire time.

*Making that gratitude list that you keep adding to each day.

*Journaling God’s work in and through your life.

*Reading and meditating on Scriptures.

*Leading others in Scriptures or praise to God.

*Thanking God aloud for what He’s done/is doing/has done.

You don’t have to have a specific plan to worship, and sometimes, the Nike theme is best: “Just Do It.” One can “feel thankful” yet not express it, which is a travesty. (Luke 17:15-18) You must let gratitude flow through, in, and out of you. (Heb. 13:5)

Find ways to express gratitude to God. Dig deep for a way to rejoice in the Lord. Ask Him to put continual contentment in your heart that can only come from Him. Bless the Lord, whether you “feel like it” or not. You will find that the more you are intentional with these acts of expression, the closer to God you will become, the more joy-filled you will be, and the more impact you can have on others.