“Gratitude” – an Attitude of Thanksgiving.

I believe Gratitude is an attitude of gratefulness that is based on being thankful. I also believe we will never truly be grateful until we are first thankful. The Bible says in I Thessalonians, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” If we look long and hard enough we will find something we can be thankful for. It doesn't matter how good or how bad it is, how little or how much we have, we can find something to be thankful for. In Matthew 14 we read a story of a little lad who had a small lunch; He had two fish and five small loaves of bread. There was a hungry crowd of five thousand there that day. The disciples brought the little lad's lunch to Jesus because that was all the food they could find in the crowd that day. When they brought what they had to Jesus the passage tells us that "He looked up and Blessed it..." Take note He didn't look down, He looked up, He didn't curse He blessed. The word Bless is the Greek word - eulogeo: which means "to bless", "to be thankful for” and “to speak well of.” It is the word that we derive our English word Eulogy. We can learn so much from this little verse (19) of Matthew chapter 14:

WE CAN LEARN FROM WHAT JESUS DID.

1. He looked up... He didn't look down. He didn't look at what He lacked. He didn't look at others disbelief. He looked UP and He Blessed it. He was thankful for, and spoke well of what He had.

When Jesus received the bread He didn't say, "is that all you have?" He didn't say, "you have got to be kidding me." He didn't even sarcastically say, "this will make a nice snack...for me." He received it, looked up and blessed it. Jesus knew that what He was willing to be thankful for and speak well of, God was willing to bless and multiply. We serve a God of more than enough. Don't underestimate anything, remember, "little is much if God is in it!"

2. He thanked God for what He had... not what He needed. Jesus didn't say, I need 7,237 fish sandwiches; 4,213 on white, the rest on rye. He just received, looked up and blessed what He had been given. God knew what He needed and He multiplied what Jesus lifted up and blessed.

Jesus thanked God for what He had although it was not enough. He needed enough to feed five thousand people, but He had two fish and five small loaves. God knows what we need, maybe He is waiting for us to thankful for what we have before He gives us what we need. When we begin to look up and bless what we already have God will begin to multiply the things in our lives.

3. He took what He had and He “blessed it.” To bless means "to bless", "to be thankful for" and "to speak well of." Jesus didn't look down at it, He looked up with it. He didn't curse it, He blessed it. He didn't speak bad of it, He spoke well of it.

What if we would start looking up instead of looking down? What if we started blessing and stopped cursing? What if we started speaking well of those things in our life instead of speaking bad of those things in our life. Things like our God, our self, our family, our finances, our health, our relationships, our home, our job, our mind, our possessions, our attitudes, the Church, our past, our present and our future.We should be thankful for what we have before it is gone. We should be thankful for what we have even if it is not what we want. We should be thankful for what we have because it was given by God.

We should do like Jesus did. We should Look Up, Be Thankful and Speak Well Of those things we look at as being insignificant or menial. Remember little is much if God is in it and "Gratitude" is an attitude of thanksgiving.

Begin today developing an attitude of thanksgiving... 1. Look up Don't look Down, 2. Thank God for what you have, 3. Take what you have and bless it, that is, Be thankful for it, and Speak well of it.