It’s that time of the year filled with opportunities to focus on spending time together with family, on our blessings and this week on giving thanks at thanksgiving.

Studies have shown some amazing benefits of Gratitude. Research shows how gratitude can be a strong predictor of well-being. It improves a persons mood: People who are grateful are happier and more satisfied. Reduces stress: Gratitude can help people cope with stress. A grateful person gets better sleep: People who practice gratitude tend to fall asleep faster, sleep longer, and have better quality sleep. It Improves relationships: Gratitude can help build and maintain social bonds. 

Causes better physical health: Gratitude can improve immunity, lower blood pressure and heart rate, and decrease the risk of disease. Reduces anxiety and depression: Gratitude can help counteract depression and anxious thoughts.

Being Grateful can result in some amazing things - its powerful! All these effects are good and important but what if we’ve missed something? - Are these the main things gratitude does?Let’s look at Jesus giving thanks while facing the most harrowing event

Matthew 26:26 / Mark 14:22 / Luke 22:19 all these describe Jesus giving thanks at the Last Supper

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

It seems like a small gesture but it's impactful to see that even when great suffering is looming over him, Jesus still gives thanks - give thanks in all circumstances.

What was the outcome? Did he become happier after this, no he was deeply distressed. Did his friendships improve? He was abandoned by them. What about the health benefits? Stress decrease? No, he loses his life!

What does happen? He gives thanks knowing that his body will be given on the cross. He will be arrested, unjustly tried, tortured and murdered - Still he gives thanks.  

Even though we know the Power of gratitude. I don't think we fully grasp the The Magnitude of Gratitude

Why and How does gratitude cause all the amazing things that have been studied? What's the point of gratitude if those things don't come true?

It’s not so much all the benefits that sometimes are measurable but there’s the immeasurable, important impacts gratitude has. One is the seismic impact it has on our character. Thats the impact it always has, it changes us - who we are, the type of person we are becoming and transforming into. Are we entitled and selfish? Gratitude helps us embrace a Godly character, one of perseverance and resilience. 

There's another thing gratitude impacts 1 Timothy 4:4-5 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

This seems like a pretty bland and straightforward text. Be thankful. Got it. But there is an idea at the heart of this text that is very profound if you let the implications sink in. And the idea is this:

Gratitude sanctifies the world. Gratitude makes the world holy.

Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thankfulness, for it is made holy/sanctified, made acceptable to God by the word of God and prayer.

Think about that. Think of everything you possess, everything that is yours in life, the good and the bad. How can we live with these things in a way that doesn't entangle us? In a way that isn't sinful?

Receive them with gratitude. When we handle the things of the world as gifts they become holy, consecrated and sanctified. Gratitude--thankfulness-- marks the boundary between the sacred and the profane.

What is something in your life needing to be sanctified. First step, have a grateful heart toward it, see what the Word and Prayer can do through it. How can God transform that situation? This perspective comes when we're filled with gratitude. We begin to see all things as gifts, that are to be used and given for God's purposes.

Thankfulness sanctifies the world because thankfulness creates the capacity to use things--by letting them go or sharing them--in holy ways. Let's begin reading the events of life with a readiness to give thanks. Happy Thanksgiving.