Grateful Hearts

You're listening to the My Morning Devotional Podcast, episode 1605. Today's Devo is called Grateful Hearts.

Hey there, we're the Alessies, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy and to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time. That's why we've partnered with our friend Allison to produce a five-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast.

Well, happy Friday, everybody! We've made it to the end of the week. Whoop whoop! And I hope you've been blessed and you enjoyed all of these devots. Again, we did them sporadically. We just felt like, you know what, we're always doing a theme. What is the Lord putting on our hearts individually to share with you? And sometimes I think that's really helpful because we all know that everybody's different and everybody's in a different walk with the Lord. And so we need different things. We need to hear different things. We need to be challenged in a different way. So again, I hope this blesses you. I'm gonna kind of jump off of last uh yesterday's episode. We talked about speaking life. And 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 18 says this rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ. I think I've done an episode on this verse before, but I don't care because this is such a good verse. Because so many of us ask the Lord, what is your will for my life? We think will or even purpose equals career, equals family, equals how many children you're going to have. Yes, I do believe that's part of God's plan for you. I do believe we all get to build our lives according to the word of God and according to his will. I think God has people that he wants you to come into relationship with. But I do not believe God's will for you is to marry your husband or your wife, have four children, and call it a day. Because God wants to do so much through you. In fact, the husband and the children, God's going to use for all of you to further glorify and advance his kingdom. 1 Thessalonians 5 says that our will is entirely different than that. He actually says that your will for our God's will for us in Christ is that we would rejoice always, that we would pray continually, and we would give thanks in all circumstances. So whether you feel like I'm not in his will because I'm single, or I'm not in his will because I don't have children, I'm not in his will because of X, Y, and Z, the will that God has for us is about rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks. And what I love is it's saying always, continually, in all circumstances. Our life, the breath in our lungs is given to us to rejoice and always pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances. God did not just create us, and I'm not I'm I am all about getting married and having children. I'm doing that right now. But our only will and purpose is not just to get married and have children. God, God wanted us in the midst of that to rejoice in it. In the midst of that, to pray continually. What does that mean? Constantly have a conversation with the Lord. Have your heart open to him and communicate to him continually. It's not just the 15 minutes in the morning that you get, it's throughout your day. Continue to talk to the Lord and give thanks in all circumstances. In the best circumstances you could be in, and in the worst, give thanks to him. It's funny because my my grandma Faith, it's my mom's mom, she is a pillar in the faith. There's a reason why her name is Faith Frederick, because she is so strong in the Lord, and her relationship with the Lord is truly something that I admire and that I want to replicate. I want that relationship that she's had with the Lord. But she's had to go through a whole lot in her life. Well, she tells us this thing about, you know, in the mornings, waking up, and she's like, I love getting in my my devotional time. I love reading my word in the mornings. And she's like, I like that I have set a time set time aside and I just I focus on that. She says, but I never want to be bound to just talking to God in the morning. And she told us the story of she was in her prayer closet one day and she was praying and she was having a moment, but she could hear her kids outside, her daughters outside, as they were eating breakfast and they were all laughing and giggling and talking. And and it hit her, she's like, Man, I'm missing out on a moment with my family. And I know I'm praying and I'm having a moment with the Lord, but God has also called me to do that. So she got up out of her prayer closet and she went in, she enjoyed the moment. Right after she's cleaning up breakfast, she just starts to pray. And then a little bit later, she's talking to her daughters and she starts to rejoice and starts to talk about the good things of God. And then a little bit later, she starts to think, give thanks to God. And what she was telling us is that sometimes us as believers, we reserve rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks to the 15 minutes or 30 minutes that we have in the morning with Him, but we go without throughout our day and we don't do it again. When God is saying, My will for you is that you would do that always, that you would continue to rejoice, that you would continue to pray, talk to me, and that you would continue to give thanks. So I'm gonna challenge every single one of us. Now that we're ending our devo this morning, because many of us do this in the morning and that it's a part of your devotional time with the Lord. Don't let it stop here. Don't let your gratefulness to the Lord just stop at a prayer that you have in the morning. When you're at work today, share of the goodness of God with your coworkers. If they're all complaining and they're all saying a bunch of stuff that's going wrong, just say, Well, I'm I'm truly grateful for my husband. I have the greatest husband ever. Well, I'm truly grateful for this job. Thank God we all get to work here. I'm truly grateful that I have a church that I get to go to every Sunday and I'm blessed by. You can even tell him, I'm truly grateful I have an incredible devotional that I listen to every single morning, and you should too. Why? Because that's rejoicing and giving thanks always. And just remind yourself, if you get a moment of quiet with the Lord, just start to pray and talk to him because it's something that we need to do all the time, and that is his will for us. I hope you guys were blessed. Let's pray and let this not be our only prayer today. Father, we just thank you. I thank you, Lord, for who you are. We give thanks to you right now, whatever circumstance that we are in. God, whether it's good or bad, we choose to give thanks and we find things to be grateful for and thankful for. God, we just pray that throughout our day that you would remind us to rejoice and pray and give thanks to you. And we thank you for your will for our lives. We bless your name. We bless you, God. We thank you for the life that you've given us, and we just are expectant and ready for a great weekend ahead. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

So there you have it, your five minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take on your day. If you've found value in this devotional, share it with a friend. Leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now. Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong, but your love for Jesus is stronger.