Hello, my friends! I’m back, and happy Thanksgiving! Now that it is Thanksgiving break, I finally have time to write. And just in time, too, because now is the perfect time to talk about being thankful.

Being thankful is commanded in the Bible. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Give thanks to God in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” It explicitly says that it is God’s will for us to be thankful! 1 Chronicles 16:34 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

It couldn’t have been made more clear that God wants us to thank him constantly. However, many are mistaken in their beliefs of where our thankfulness comes from.

John Piper has inspired me time and time again of this topic in his series “The Blazing Center” (you can watch it on his website here). He speaks on how God commands us to be joyful over and over again in the Bible. But, he says, we shouldn’t be joyful simply because it’s commanded. We should be joyful because God’s grace fills our hearts to overflowing, which then spills out in our own lives in the form of joy. You are so satisfied in God that you can’t help but be joyful!

It is the same with thankfulness. We understand that God has filled our hearts with joy and that he has saved us and given us what we really need: Jesus Christ. Therefore, we express thankfulness to God because of what he’s done! Not with an attitude of, “I have to be thankful. It’s commanded. I am going to be thankful whether I like it or not. I’m going to write down 5 things I’m grateful for even if my heart doesn’t feel like it.” But with an attitude of, “God, you are so great and so good to me. I know that you have saved me and supplied me with what I need. And not only that, you have given me even more: shelter, food, friends, a job, education. And I am thankful.”