Sacrifice Your Thankfulness

Through my devotions today I received a good lesson on why we tithe or give to the Lord, and I thought that it was very appropriate for this time of year. These are the verses that I came a crossed, along with my reflections of these verses.

"14 Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. 15 Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory."

"23 But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God."

Psalm 50:14-15,23

Before today I never thought thankfulness as a sacrifice that we can give to God, but it is a crucial part of the equation of giving. The Bible tells us that God created the world and everything in the world is his, therefore we can not give him anything that he needs. We give to remind us of our obedience, we give to show our faith, we give to help others, and lastly we give to show God our thankfulness for all that he has provided for us. So that if we require a need to be filled we can call on his name and he can rescue us.

Sacrificing our thankfulness has much significance and we must not forget to do it out of love. For his ultimate sacrifice was the greatest act of love that we will ever receive, and provides us much to be thankful for. The equation for sacrificing our thankfulness is simply this; Give out of thankfulness to show and receive love, so that the Lord's glory and salvation may be revealed back to us.

SHH Listen...

I believe listening is a skill, some people have it, others refuse to do it, and some people do not even know where to start when it comes to using their ears. Often I find myself having the same conversation with people, retelling the same details that I did once, twice, or even three times before.

When I find myself in this situation I begin to wonder does this person really care of what I have to say am I just wasting my time. These people are so caught up in everything about their world, their life, their needs that they couldn't possibly remember anything that you recently told them. It's not that they intend to be rude to you or even selfish, but for some reason they just cannot listen, its just all about them.

I find that these people are also afraid of silence and or find it very hard to sit still, mainly because they must constantly being trying to fill some need in their own life. I just want to tell them Stop! Take a deep breath, don't move, don't speak, just listen. We all have times of only thinking about our self or maybe not listening the best we can, I am not trying to point any fingers here because I am guitly as well.

My point in all this is simply this, we all need to be aware of how God is moving and what he is speaking. Luckily when we speak God always listens and think we owe it to him to listen when its his turn. Through prayer we should sit in God's presence meaning you are with God and he is with you. Our prayer needs to be a conversation a process of both talking to him and then listening. It's very easy to talk but it takes a lot to humble yourself and listen. I believe that God can speak in miraculous signs or wonders but that he speaks even more to us through gentle whispers. It is a challenge to listen but it's one that we need to overcome.

Stop! Take a deep breath, don't move, don't speak, just listen.... What happens after the dot dot dot may change your life!