It is good to have love for God in your heart, but even better to express it with the words of your mouth.
Tell God several times each day that you love Him; say with the psalmist David: “I love You fervently and devotedly, O Lord my Strength” (Ps. 18:1). It isn’t good enough to merely think, “God knows how I feel.” Are you blessed when people tell you they love and appreciate you? Of course you are, and it blesses God when we verbalise our love and praise for Him. Verbal expression of love and gratitude improves all our relationships, including our relationship with God.
Don’t offer your petitions to God without telling Him how grateful you are for what He has already done for you. As parents we are more likely to answer the request of a thankful child than we are a grouchy and ungrateful one. As an employer I want to do even more for employees who are appreciative. Offering our continual gratitude to God for His goodness and mercy in our lives moves Him to want to do even more for us. Our gratitude shows God that we are mature enough to handle even more blessing and responsibility.
Women often say, “I know my husband loves me, but I wish he would tell me more often.” Let’s try to be more diligent in telling God and the people in our lives that we love and appreciate them and what they mean to us.
Regarding gratitude, q thankful person is a happy person! If we want to increase our joy, all we really need to do is think more about what we have to be grateful for. Sadly, it is easy to fall into the habit of thinking about what we want, what we don’t have, or what other people have that we wish we had. But that doesn’t please God, and it steals our joy.
God’s Word teaches that we should be anxious for nothing, and to pray about everything, with thanksgiving (see Philippians 4:6). I doubt that God has any interest in giving us more if we are already complaining about what we have or don’t have. It seems to me that the more thankful and appreciative we are for what God has already done for us, the more He would be inclined to do.
Think of five things today you have to be thankful for and voice your gratitude to God! – Joyce Meyer
