Day 4 - Thanksgiving

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's 

will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

This letter in which this verse was given was for believers and gave them instruction on how to live and these believers were warned by Paul that the day of the Lord was coming but he tells them that it should not take them by surprise. Later on he tells the believers what God's will is for those in Christ Jesus which is shown in the verse above notice he tells us to rejoice always and to pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances this can be hard sometimes and we have rough days where we are genuinely feeling discouraged and these commands that seem simple when everything is going well in our eyes but become so hard to apply in the midst of trials, big decisions or non christian environments. So how can we do these things in these hard times? If we look at the following verses we need to fix our eyes on Jesus (see Hebrews 12: 1-2) when we fix our eyes on Jesus we begin to see people in a new perspective and when we submit to God we will find it easier to rejoice and be thankful and pray. We also need to be fixing our eyes on those things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable which is everything that God is (see Phillipians 4:8) and often in hard times we are focusing on the opposite of these things when we take our eyes off God and to the world and our focus becomes on those things which are false, ignoble, wrong, impure and horrible thoughts. When we fix our eyes upon God and realize our dependence on Him we truly can pray continually even by frequent small prayers throughout the day.

Disclaimer I really do recommend reading these verses in context to get the overall view and not just an out of context verse because these verses are aimed at specific people and situations sometimes and I really want you to understand what God is saying to you as you read each mini devotion.

Be encouraged

Jaleen x