Always giving thanks to God the Father
“always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:20)
It is not easy to ask for gratitude from people living in difficult reality. It will be even more so in situations where everything is hard like these days. However, at times like this, we need to know well how to behave and to live wisely. The more we meet an unrighteous situation of the reality, the more we should realize well the will of the Lord and try to lead own life right. There are many people who want to get out of difficulties by getting drunk. They also try to wash away the fatigue of their life through doing games and dancing and etc. But an important attitude Christians have to take is to live thanking God with faith anytime.
One of the words that modern people use a lot is ‘stress’. To relieve stress, it’s good to change the direction of the thoughts or reduce down the sensitive thoughts. Those ways make sense, but it’s far more important to find out the root cause and the relations of stress. This is because it is easy to find countermeasures if the motive and cause are identified clearly. What is surely needed to accomplish that is wisdom. For we can search out the cause and countermeasures of the problem with wisdom. Yet, we have to know the only perfect wisdom in man’s life is to live in awe of the Lord in the faith of Christ.
It’s a basic posture of a wise person's life to save time. Not only is evil rampant in this world, but the situations have been changing urgently. There is constant competition and battles between individuals, companies, or countries, and many problems continue to arise along with it. The hatred and murder that had begun between Cain and Abel are continuing as usual, and the phenomenon will not stop until the end of world. Also, people live with the fleshly comfort and joy as the best goal of their lives. It would be almost impossible to look someone who doesn’t. Somebody may ask back, “Why is it bad to aim for fleshly comfort and joy?” But we have to realize the pleasure of the flesh is likely to lead to weakening and collapse of the soul. Thus such the joy would have to be wary for spiritual life.
Those who regard time valuable should always live hard to read the Bible and follow the Word of the Lord. It is said, a person who want to play the role of a head of the town should have knowledge for managing the work. “The novice shaman makes people die,” means a little knowledge could make thing dangerous. Therefore if one is ignorant, like that the person can’t do anything right. Like that, in order to have the right faith, we must read the Bible to know the will of the Lord. Nothing is more dangerous than faith that only listens to sermons without reading the Bible. So please try hard to do reading the Bible. When we read the Bible, we can experience the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible is the word of God, recorded as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When many people go through frustrating things, they mostly get drunk and try to relieve stress. God wants us not to rely on alcohol and maintain the fullness of the Holy Spirit through the Bible Word. People can become like dogs when they rely on alcohol, but when they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they will be able to become strong, beautiful, and excellent.
Evil spirits have a power quite strong and clever. Therefore, if we don’t rely on the Holy Spirit, we will inevitably fall down by Satan’s punch. It’s no use for a person to be smart alone, and even if he has a handsome beauty, it’s the same to be used for Satan. In Genesis 6:2, the reason why the sons of God were seduced by human daughters was because of the beauty of women. So rather than caring about our appearance, we need to try to make oneself a person in the Holy Spirit. And we need to maintain a life of encouraging and cooperating with a life of holy grace, by forming a united energies between people in the Holy Spirit. Also, above all, it is so important to achieve a life of obedience between people, thanking God.
The theme of this message is ‘Always giving thanks to God the Father’. This title includes totally the time, target, and the content meaning of the gratitude. No matter what difficulties we face, we need to thank God of creation and salvation anytime and on any matters, and respect each other between people. Respect makes oneself voluntary obedience do to the concerned. Through the process of such doing, the world can change into the heaven. Otherwise, the world will be full of discord, fighting, and death alone until the last.
(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Jan 16th 2022)