Gratitude Expressed
I am certain that you are being blessed as you listen to my mentor Derek Wilson preach on gratitude this week! Let's hear his third point today, about giving expression to our gratitude:
The Power of Expressed Gratitude
Thirdly, we need to learn to express gratitude. We need to express it. We need to learn to say thank you and mean it.
There's something about the way God made us that when we begin to express gratitude, we start to feel gratitude. How many people came into church tonight saying... "I'd rather be watching TV"? But you know, you walk in and you're feeling like this, and you sing a couple of songs, and suddenly you begin to lift out of that and you get drawn into what's happening, and you walk out afterwards and you say, "Hey, that was all right! That was all right. I enjoyed that. As long as he doesn't go on for too long!"
The more we express thanks, the better it gets.
Saying Thank You and Meaning It
We all live off words of thanks and appreciation, you know, folks. You know how powerful those words are? "Gee, thank you." Maybe your spouse needs to hear them. Maybe you need to hear them from your spouse. Maybe you need to hear it or say it to a brother, a sister, a friend, a neighbour. Maybe it's someone in this room tonight. We'll form a queue outside afterwards, and you can all hug one another and say thank you to each other, and it'll be good!
But we've got to learn to express gratitude. We don't do it enough, folks. We're very quick to tell people about the things we don't like about them, but we're not very quick about saying, "Thank you, I appreciate that. That was a blessing. Gee, what a blessing. Thank you." We don't do that enough.
So true! Friends, you've got to express it! I encourage you to get proactive today, and say thank you to somebody precious in your life. Perhaps those words expressed will change everything.
Gratitude unexpressed is gratitude unfelt! Derek Wilson shares about giving expression to our feelings of thankfulness.