Grateful or Frenzied: How Will You Spend the Holidays?

What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday? What would you have? There are always reasons to be grateful, but it’s our decision whether we want to be or not.

Grateful

Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.

Matthew 11: 20

God does miracles in our lives so we will be grateful and decide to repent. He reminds us that it doesn’t matter how much we’ve been given, but only how grateful we are for what we’ve received.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Romans 12: 1-3

Gratitude comes from our view of God’s mercy. How do you feel about Jesus and the cross? When we understand how God feels about us and what he’s done for us, we become grateful for the forgiveness, protection, and purpose God gives us.

We become self-consumed and ungrateful when we view life based on how we feel, what we haven’t gotten, how we compare to others, and how others feel about us.

Holidays reveal our priorities. Will you prioritize your relationship with God, reading the Bible, prayer, and openness? Or will you prioritize feeling good and looking good in the eyes of people.

Frenzied

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:21

Our thinking gets dark when we stop giving God thanks and prioritizing him. What does a darkened heart look like?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper;…. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

Galatians 5:19-21

Sin makes our lives frenzied and destroys our hearts, lives, and eventually our relationships. What sins are developing in your life as a result of setting your heart on getting your own way versus finding God’s will? How can you start overcoming these sins?

Beat the Frenzy

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Romans 12: 1

Everywhere we go is an opportunity to embrace what God is doing!

What are ways you can build faith over the holidays? What will you study in your bible?

Grateful

God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

Romans 12: 3