NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Topic: “THANKING GOD FOR HIS PROVISIONS”
Text: Philippians 4:1-7
Memory Verse: “Philippians 4:6 – “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God”.
Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes center on anything apart from God and His will for us. When we make any other thing our goal, frustration and defeat are inevitable. Despite all the modernization and technological break-through that are the insignia of a modern man, it is a sorrowed brow. We are always enveloped by fear and anxiety. We are anxious about everything, how children will go to school, how we will eat and feed our families, how we will pay house rents. We are worried about our health, even when we do not have health challenges, we fear that one day we may be sick
God has never promised us a trouble free life, He has never promised to remove all our troubles, problems and difficulties. In fact, sometimes I tend to think that a committed Christian is in conflict with the society around him more than any other person is. Society is going one way and the Christian is going in another direction. This brings about friction and conflict. However, God has promised in the midst of the trouble and conflict, a genuine peace, a sense of assurance and security that the worldly person never knows. He said we should be of good cheer because He has overcome the world for us.
Today’s passage enjoins us not to worry about anything when we can pray to our father in heaven who will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory through Jesus Christ” our Lord. We are further enjoined to do so with thanksgiving. I remember our growing up years at Sunday school when we were taught how to pray. One of the things we were taught was that when we pray, we must start with thanksgiving: (1) For having a father who is always concerned with our infirmities and needs (2) For all that He has done for us previously and even for keeping us alive to see a new day. It is after this thanksgiving that you can then ask for new things. By thanking Him for what He has done, you are opening the door for other wonders in your life and for answers to your new requests
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, teach me to keep my eyes centered on you rather than on myself and my anxieties, Help me to allow you to give me peace of heart and mind today, Amen.