A Mind of Thankfulness, Pt 2

Ron Weinland

June 2, 2018

In order to address the Pentecost season that we have been through we had interrupted a particular series that we were in and we’re going to return to that today, with the series entitled The Mind, or A Mind of Thankfulness, and this is Part 2.

This series addresses a mind, a spirit of ingratitude, of unthankfulness, and the kind of mindset or spirit, this kind of mindset or spirit has been getting worse and worse, especially the more we’ve gone into or had the ability to do things in technology that man never had and so this has just speeded up the process, the technology we have. It’s affected how people think; it’s affected how people are when it comes to things of ingratitude, unthankfulness, and so that’s why we’re addressing some of that spirit here.

We’re going to go back and look at a particular verse that we ended on, but before we do, there is a quote that I gave in Part 1 that I want to repeat today and it goes like this: “It has been stated that the sin of ingratitude is more serious than the sin of revenge.” I like that contrast because when you think about revenge, when you think about things that people do in life, especially if it gets to a point where it’s far more dangerous in how they’re seeking revenge and what they’re seeking revenge in, and to state it this way that “the sin of ingratitude is more serious than the sin of revenge, because with revenge one returns evil for evil, but with ingratitude one returns evil for good.”

The reason I’m repeating this and did in the other sermon is because we don’t tend to think of not being thankful in the sense of something that’s evil. But really, ingratitude or unthankfulness is evil. It’s wrong. It’s a part of a sick mindset. We actually have to learn those traits, those qualities. Oftentimes they are something that really need to be taught by parents, to teach children how to be grateful, how to be thankful, to express it, to know when to express it, and then it can begin affecting the way one actually thinks. And if a person isn’t taught that that’s an incredible disservice and they don’t realize then how it actually affects their thinking. That’s an incredible thing to understand indeed that it is evil not to be thankful, not to be grateful, and it needs to be looked at in that light.

So to really grasp the importance of such a quote in the context of what we’re covering in this series is to begin to truly see more clearly how God only pours out upon mankind that which is good. That’s the way God is. I love the simplicity of Mr. Armstrong’s quote, or his example that he gave when he talked about how God is, what God is like. God, His mind, God’s love is always give. It’s always one of giving. But man’s nature, our human nature, is one of get. This is where this attitude of unthankfulness begins to work its way in. It begins to come out in our thinking because of that nature. Because of the mind of get, of selfishness, we want for ourselves and we don’t think about others.

To be thankful, to be grateful you have to think about the good that comes your way from others, and that’s a mindset. That’s a way of thinking. And sadly, too many people just don’t think that way today.

I marvel, wherever we go anymore it seems like its worse and worse, or maybe in my older years here (since I just had another birthday), I see this more and more. It’s kind of an irritating thing, candidly, when you’re walking down a sidewalk or wherever you are people are only thinking of themselves. And it should be quite obvious if you’re on a sidewalk and someone is coming toward you that you need to make room, but people don’t even bother to get over. They expect you to, and in many cases it’s almost like, “Get out of my way! Get out of the path. Walk on the grass. Do something, but I’m coming through!” because there is not this attitude and spirit that is right in thinking about others.

This has a great deal to do with whether one is of a thankful spirit, mindset, or one of ingratitude, one of get, because truly to be filled with gratitude and thankfulness is to give. It is to give back or to acknowledge good that’s come your way. And if we grasp and comprehend the good that comes from God in our lives we will be an incredibly thankful people. Yet I have seen in God’s Church where people aren’t always thankful. We can turn inward. We can turn very selfish. People can turn away from the truth that God gave, not grasping, not comprehending the kind of sacrifice that God gave, that His Son gave, that many who have gone before us have made for us to be able to receive what we have. And though it’s a progressive revelation that God has given to mankind, there’s been a lot of suffering through the ages of things that people have gone through in order for us to have what we have.

We were talking the other day in one area; some were talking and referring back to Mr. Armstrong’s time when he first began to travel across the United States and working with some of the broadcasts on radio and the like and how excited he was to be able to go clear across the United States flying in four or so stops, four stops along the way in order to get where he was going. That was a lot harder back then. We may have to make one stop most of the time when we travel somewhere out of Cincinnati in a layover and catching another flight, but this was just the way it was back then. To get across the U.S. you had to make about four stops, and so he referred to those things. The time involved in doing that it was much harder back then than what it is today, and it’s not the kind of ease and the so forth that we have today.

I often think about when anything gets a little rough, a flight has been delayed like we had one recently, a six hour delay and some of the things taking place there, losing luggage, taking two days to get to us. Those are mild things, but to us it can seem like a big thing. But the reality is it’s really small in the scheme of things. It’s how we think.

I tend to think back on others who have gone before us. I especially think about the apostle, Paul, and things he had to go through, and the other apostles as well, but especially the apostle, Paul, being shipwrecked in the Mediterranean like he was. That’s sacrifice to give to others. He wasn’t thinking far into the future, but he was thinking about others to whom he was travelling to and things that he tried to do or things he wanted to do. Of course some of that, obviously, was beyond his control because he was being taken to Rome.

But anyway, a lot of sacrifice that people have made through the ages to give us what we have. But yet I am amazed at the unthankfulness and the ingratitude that has existed. Everyone who is called has an incredible opportunity in this way of life, and yet how many people have gone by the wayside? Coming here I think about people who have been able to travel here, to be here, who no longer are around. Those things always stick out in my mind, let alone the people who had been in this region, in this area.

Hawaii has been hit hard in times past, in Worldwide as well, because of the very fact that it’s more isolated, in that respect, from the mainland. In the mainland people are able to have opportunity to mix together or to be together more often, but here, a little more secluded, and because of that ministers were able to have a control, exert a control that wasn’t good if they went astray. And that’s what happened, and because they were a little more remote it was harder to know what was really taking place in a particular area, what was being spoken, what was being given in sermons.

So in time when individuals went off course they infected a lot of people. It’s that same mind of Lucifer, what he did to the angelic realm. He just kept spewing out his garbage about God, negative things about God. And candidly, those things all go back to the spirit of ingratitude, of unthankfulness, of losing sight of what we’ve really been given and the sacrifice that’s gone into it. So I hope we begin to see that more and more as we go through this particular series.

Let’s turn over to Ephesians now, Ephesians 5, and read a little bit here before we pick up from where we left off, or continue on from this point. Ephesians 5:8—For you were once in darkness… Like being in Egypt. We’ve just gone through some of that talking about the Israelites coming out of Egypt and coming up to, after forty years, coming up to the Jordan and crossing over from one side to the other and their mindset. Their mindset wasn’t that grand because they murmured and they complained against God during that forty years and they weren’t thankful like they should have been and to hold on to that reality, “God brought us out of Egypt. He brought us out from under the rule of an oppressive government and He destroyed that government by His great power.”

For us sometimes, sadly, people begin to lose sight of what they were called out of. That’s something we should never lose sight of. How much has God given to us since our minds have been opened up? What have we gone through to get where we are? What journey have we taken and do we recognize then the blessings and the opportunities that we have had along the way of making choices and just of what God has given us in the mind and how He works with us to mold and fashion us, to change us so we’re not as we were before? And then to have that mind of attitude then toward others in the world and realizing they can’t help that they’re still in bondage. We can! There are ways that we can respond.

So it says, for you were once in darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. We have an incredible opportunity to live different. They don’t. It’s like people who are addicted to drugs. There are situations where they can’t get off or they have incredible battles. We have some associated with us. They kind of bounce back and forth. They want to come back, but can’t until they address certain things in their life, and it’s a tough thing because addictions like that, the pulls in the mind and things that take place, you feel for them because until God begins to really bless and help the mind to be healed of certain things there are some things that people are going to be captive to, and our hearts should go out to them, and a lot of that, again, goes back to us – gratitude and thankfulness. What have we been given? The ability to see things, the ability to change, the ability to come out of darkness and live right, begin to live right.

So He says, now are you light in the Lord, walk as children of light. So we have an opportunity to live a certain way of life and a better way. A lot of that has to do with having compassion on others, mercy on others, but it goes back to this mind of gratitude and thankfulness because if that isn’t the foundation and the basis of your mind, of your thinking, then you’re not going to be able to think right toward others, you’re not going to be able to think right toward God. Because that goes back to a gratitude and a thankfulness for what you have, a relationship you have with God and what that means in your life. If people ever begin to forget that and lose that, to lose the ability to be thankful for the very beginning of their calling, then they can lose everything.

I guess I’m speaking out about this because whenever I think of something like this I think of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people we have known who have done just that, at some point lost the gratitude and the thankfulness, the knowing of why we have what we have been given.

It says (for the fruit of the spirit…) so here is a fruit that can be in our life. Here is a product of something in our life, a growth that we can experience that comes from God. It says, (for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness…) not evil. Ingratitude is really evil. Being unthankful is just a wrong mindset, and it’s a very selfish mindset. It’s actually kind of like a gauge where we are in our thinking. How selfish are we? Or how giving? How much has been transformed up here in our thinking? Where are we in our process of growth?

...(for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth). Again, goodness, and to understand that this matter of goodness, to return good for good, not evil. If we ignore things in our life that we have been given, if we don’t tend to think about them, if we don’t stop and think about it, meditate upon it, just have it come into the mind and consider the good that comes toward us no matter where it is in life, then we’re just not going to have a right mindset. It’s going to affect our relationships.

Continuing on, verse 17, dropping on down a little bit. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. So all this is in context leading up to this point in time, the things that are before this in Ephesians. So it’s saying here, “Don’t be foolish,” in essence, “Don’t be unwise in how you’re thinking and what you’re doing and what you’re living, but understanding what God’s will is.” Understand what He desires for us, what He has given to us, what His mind is toward us.

So it says, and do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess. So it’s using a physical example here of something that can happen on a physical basis in our life. If an individual were to drink too much alcohol, too much intake, one can become drunk. So it uses this example of something here, it says, wherein is excess, but there isn’t with God’s spirit. You can’t have too much of God’s spirit and that’s the contrast it’s making here. You can have too much of something they call “spirits,” physical spirits, and it can affect your mind in a wrong way, but God’s spirit you can’t have too much. So that’s the example being given here, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. So it’s giving this contrast.

Desire to be filled with God’s spirit. That’s His will. He has sacrificed much and He works with us much to give us of His mind, of His being in our thinking. It’s through the holy spirit. It’s the spirit essence communicating with us, working with us to transform our thinking.

It goes on to say here, speaking, and this is a unique word because it’s not just in words that we have coming out of our mouth, though so often it’s expressed that way because it expresses what the mind is thinking. So what comes out of our mouth does, and this is just an expression here of something expressing something that’s deep from within, deep inside. It’s not just blabbing, you know, having talk; it’s something that’s coming from deep inside because of how we think. …speaking your own self… It’s not “to yourselves.” Of course, I guess you can, as you get older, start talking to yourself. No, it’s when you answer that’s a problem, so I’ve heard.

…speaking to your own self/speaking your own self, is how it’s better translated here, speaking your own self in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Now, this has to do with what’s inside. It doesn’t necessarily mean you break out in song, you know. I mean, how good would that look out here on a walk today out here and walking by some people and you just break out in this kind of singing and looking like an idiot – you know, “The Sound of Music,” whatever type of thing. That’s not what this is about. It’s about what’s coming out of you. It’s about how you feel. This is a great way of expressing it.

Music is powerful. Music, you can hear a tune or you hear a tune or you have a tune that comes in your mind – just like some of the hymns we have. It can be years and years. We don’t sing them except at the Feast, but there can be some of those that we sang many, many, many years ago and if that tune comes into your mind you can remember the words of it. There’s something that comes out of you that it’s awesome how that has such a power in the mind. That’s why music is a very powerful thing. It can be for good and it can be for evil depending on how it’s used. Sadly, the world doesn’t use it for good.

So, this expression here, “your own self in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs.” A lot of this has to do with your thinking because it’s about God. It’s about things that come from God because it’s talking about psalms. It’s talking about spiritual songs. It’s talking about things that we receive in life from God, and so it has to do with our thinking and what comes out of us internally then in our expression.

Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. So it’s, again, it’s how you feel inside. So how we respond to God, we’re going to go through some scriptures later on, probably in a Part 3, that even drive this point home even more so, that so much of how we think toward God has to do with this very thing we’re talking about. It has to do with the spirit of gratitude, of thankfulness, and it’s something that comes out deep inside. We talk about the heart, the mind, but that’s an expression of something that we feel so deeply, and if you feel that deeply, if we have a deeper sense of gratitude toward God, when you’re praying to God, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s like a music. It’s like something that’s poured out to God that’s a beautiful thing to God because here we’re responding to God in thankfulness and gratitude and He’s able to receive that because it gives us a blessing of rejoicing. It’s a spirit of rejoicing. The more thankful we are in life the more enjoyment in life you can have, the more joy in life you can have. They’re directly connected.

If we’re not as thankful, not grateful about things and we’re more selfish, it’s like this black hole. It can never be fully satisfied. People, that’s the way the world is; it’s not fully satisfied and the joy is something that’s short-lived. It’s not real joy because of a mind that we have, because of a thinking we have. But God’s way is. There is a joy and a happiness in life that we can have in a richer way if we have this kind of mindset, more of this mindset.

That’s why it goes on to say, “Giving thanks always.” It’s a mindset. It’s how we think. To give thanks always for all things unto God. So that doesn’t just happen. You have to think about that. That’s why prayer and prayer life is so important because so much of the prayer ought to be, in our thinking, about how God’s working in our life and our response to it. Are we thankful? Are we grateful?

Sometimes in the beginning when we’re first called the mind can be more inward and we’re wanting God’s help to intervene, to make our life better, to take care of our problems, our woes, our hardships. In that period of time we don’t realize it’s through that, through the hardships, the woes, and the difficulties that God can work with our mind if we’ll yield our self to that process. Those aren’t always bad things. On contrary, we actually need them in life, but mixed with what God shows us about what is right because those things can reveal to us what is wrong and then we can begin to address them in our life with what is right that comes from God. That’s a process we have to go through.

God says here, in essence has inspired this to be said, giving thanks always for all things unto God the Father, in the name of our Lord Joshua the Christ. Incredible. Again here, understanding even that, that should stir up a gratitude and a thankfulness. Think of what he went through for us in his name that we’re able to have this relationship with God the Father. Think of His sacrifice. Think of the things he went through. Think of the things he taught and God gave him to give to us. Because in the 4,000 years that went before that people didn’t know the things that he gave later on a spiritual plane. I’m thankful, we are all thankful, I’m sure, indeed that he began to speak in terms, God gave him that inspiration to give to us ability to see things on a spiritual plane in a simpler way.

Psalm 95. Let’s go over to Psalm 95. So it’s a mindset to give thanks always for all things. It’s a mindset. It’s a way of thinking…a way of thinking. So I hope that we’re doing that more and more. I do hope indeed that as we go through this particular series there that we’re thinking about it in our prayers and at other times as well just in our thinking, because it’s not just toward God. That should teach us so much about this attitude and this mindset that we need to have more of – because we do need to have more of it. We need to grow in it. But then there is that effect that it can have toward others in our relationships. It’s like grasping the truth about God’s mercy, how merciful He’s been to us.

Think of the patience that God has had with each one of us. He doesn’t give up. He doesn’t quit. We fall on our face and we fall on our face again and we have the blessing of repentance that we have through Christ, and we think of those things, and with the spirit of gratitude then, the more thankful we are for what we’ve received, we can actually learn then to live that toward others, to be more merciful to others.

If that’s not happening there is something wrong and it generally goes back to this thing, whether this mind is being changed to one that thinks right, thinks better in the spirit of gratitude and thankfulness. Because if it isn’t there toward God then it’s not going to spread in truth, in spirit, in righteousness toward others in the way God intends it to be. Because that’s His will, that He gives us grace, He gives us mercy, He gives us patience, He gives us forgiveness and do we learn to give that to others. A lot of that goes back to whether or to how much or how deeply we are thankful to God for giving that to us because if that rings true in our lives and it’s something we think about quite often, then when we come into contact with others and we have this situation come up, it’s easier to think about what God’s done toward us and how can we not be merciful, patient, loving toward someone else? Because if that’s not there something is wrong in our relationship with God, it really is. Something is wrong. Something hasn’t grown to the point where it needs to be in our relationship toward God. So we ever have to address these kinds of things.

Psalm 95:1. So many of the Psalms talk about this very thing spoken of here in Ephesians. Oh come; let us sing… This is a word that’s like a ringing cry or a declaration, a strong declaration, a verbal expression of real joy. It’s about joy. So it’s something that comes out of us. So it can be in music or it can be in how we speak to someone else even.

It goes on to say even toward God here, O come and let us sing unto the Eternal! Let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation. So many of our prayers should be like this. They really should be. They should be expressions of happiness, of joy for God’s blessings in our life because we’re able to see them. That means there is that thankfulness toward God for what we have, because the ability to have joy, to rejoice in something like this, means we’re thankful, we’re grateful, we’re in awe of what God has given to us. We’re in awe of God’s patience. We’re in awe of God’s mercy. We’re in awe of His help and His favor and everything He’s poured out upon us. That’s what it’s talking about here.

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. That should be the way we always come before God. There should never be any different kind of mindset when we come before God Almighty in prayer. We may have different things in life to address that are serious, obviously, that we want to seek God’s help in and we lay those things before Him, but overall the mind and our thinking toward God should be one of thankfulness in what we’re expressing, “with thanksgiving.” If we fail to give thanksgiving before God, to God when we come before Him, wow. To have prayer without thanksgiving? That would be hard to comprehend, but I know it happens.

Going on here: And make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. So it’s this thing that comes out of us, how we think. It’s this response we have because of what we see and what we appreciate and what we love about God. You don’t have to have a melody. You don’t have to be singing out loud, but there should be that kind of a joy when we pray to God, to know that we have this relationship in itself.

For the Eternal is a great God, and a great King above all gods. And in His hand are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills is His also. Again here, just a simple reminder here everything is God’s. All the power is God’s. God has given us everything that we have to work with in this earth for our benefit to use, to experience, to see the differences, to experience the differences and to take them in, to enjoy them in life. That means in people as well. That’s where the task, the challenge sometimes comes in.

The sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. There is something about just being reminded this is God’s and I am able to enjoy this. I’m able to enjoy this out here in Hawaii right now, this landscape that’s here and the goats that are out here. You know, we just go out there and watch the goats going up and down this waterway and then they come in and eat all kinds of vegetation. But they’re fun to watch. They’re enjoyable. I don’t care where it is, you know, different things in nature that you can see, that you can observe, the variety of plant life, the topography, whatever it is, God has given so much variety in life for us to just enjoy. What an awesome thing!

If we think that way when we pray to God, just talking about it, it helps you to be joyful inside. It stirs up a spirit of rejoicing because there is that gratitude and thankfulness because we recognize God has given this to us. And if we can learn that we can begin to learn that more toward people and toward things that people give.

I think sometimes of people who have various kinds of responsibilities in life, different kinds of occupations or jobs that people have chosen, and so many of them I think of people who look down their nose at others not realizing everything works together. If the guy in the truck that hauls the trash (and that’s a dirty job and that can have a lot of smell to it), and he’s willing to put up with that and do that and he comes through in the neighborhood and picks those things up, I’m thankful for that. I think of individuals like that and what they go through, and I’m thankful. But there are people who just look down their nose at other people with different kinds of jobs or whatever it is.

A septic tank, you know, whatever it might be, someone that has a business, works hard to do what they do, and they’re willing to put up with something that most people really don’t like to put up with, and yet they’re willing to do it. When you need them, you want them. You tend to appreciate them more if you have that kind of situation where you want someone to come clean out a particular area. I know most people now-a-days everything is done by pipes under the ground that have been buried and things are flushed and taken away. But somewhere down the line somebody works with all that. And I’m grateful for that. I’m thankful for those individuals who do that kind of thing. If people look down upon anyone for things that they do (that blows my mind), thinking that maybe they’re better, they take away joy out of their life. They’re robbing themselves. They’re selfish. They’re really kind of evil in their thinking.

That’s why to understand you receive good from others, be thankful, be grateful. It affects the way you think toward them. It affects the way you treat them. I know that there are people who just ignore others in various kinds of occupations.

I think of when we go to an airport, someone is cleaning out the toilet, someone is cleaning out the urinals, or whatever it might be, and I have respect toward them. I think about those kinds of things when I see them out there working, because so often they’re not treated well, they’re not looked at in a good light. And I think, what a shame, because we all need each other. We really do. To function properly as a society, to function properly in the world, we need everyone that is willing to do the things that others maybe don’t like as much to do. In some cases really they ought to receive a whole lot more because of what they do in comparison.

So it affects how we think toward them. It affects how we treat them. Do people even, you know, greet individuals or thank them? Rarely. Rarely.

I hope we’re beginning to catch on just a little bit here, that the more thankful, the more grateful we are about certain things, the more you can rejoice inside. Real joy, real happiness comes from how we think toward others, as to whether it’s coming inward, selfish, or whether it’s going out. Thankfulness and gratitude has to do with good. It has to do with giving. It really does.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down… So much of this even, if you go through scriptures and read about things when it talks worship and bowing down before God, indeed it’s recognizing, honoring the Great God, to know that He is the Great God, to have that respect, that awe in our minds, but it also has to do, when it comes to worship, this gratitude, this thankfulness, and that’s a part of worship. Some of the sacrifices, the thank offerings that were given up before God had to do with thanks, had to do with how they worshipped God. God taught them that “there is a way to give to Me, and there is a way to give offerings and sacrifice to Me, and it’s to be done with a mind of thankfulness.” It’s not to be done because, “Well, I have to do it.”

You know, people who tithe because they have to do it are missing out. People who give holy day offerings because they have to do it are missing out. If we give begrudgingly, not in a right state of thinking, because we have to, because God said we have to do it and maybe people don’t think about when they don’t give like they should. They don’t realize they’re robbing themselves. We rob ourselves in our relationship toward God. We give so little back for everything He’s given us. So there’s a different mindset. It’s how we think. God’s concerned with that.

It goes on to say here, In His hands are the deep places of the earth, the strengths of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down or let us kneel before the Eternal our Maker. We are here because of God’s purpose. We are here because of God’s love. We’re here, we have existence, we have an ability to think, to see others, to have relationships with others in life, friendships and so forth that we wouldn’t have if God didn’t have a purpose and a plan for placing us here. So what is our response to that? What is our response to others?

For He is our God, we are His people, or the people of His pasture, as it says. So everything is God’s. But look what He’s given us, the care that He’s given to us, the ability to have what we have, to function as we do, to learn to work and to enjoy the labor of our work. That’s what God gives us in life. That’s what a lot of the book of Ecclesiastes is about. It’s about all this that God has given to us and how do we respond? And that’s where the fullness, the completion of how we feel in life, that’s where it comes from. …and the sheep of His hand.

Today, if you will hear His voice… I love this because this is repeated back in the book of Hebrews again in talking to the Church, encouraging us to learn from what the children of Israel did not do. They didn’t listen to Him. Mankind hasn’t listened for 6,000 years, but God has given us the ability to hear. So if we have that ability, what a blessing. It’s by His spirit. Without His spirit we wouldn’t be able to hear Him, we wouldn’t be able to have this mind begin to be changed from the time we were called to the point where we are now. How far have we come? What have we experienced? All is in gratitude to God.

Today, if you will hear His voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, a word means the contention that took place, in that respect. It’s a word that means “contention,” as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me, proved Me, and saw My work. They saw what God did. They were able to prove by the things they experienced He is God; look at all He’s done. Yet look at the attitude they had. To understand why they didn’t listen, to understand they weren’t listening, to understand what happens to the heart, that the heart can become hardened, is to understand this thing about gratitude or ingratitude, because that’s the difference. With gratitude, with thankfulness, we don’t forget, we remember.

“God saved us from the Egyptians. We weren’t slaughtered. They didn’t destroy us. We’re out here in the wilderness. Yes, this is hard. It’s hot! But it’s not the life we had before and God is feeding us. He is taking care of us out here. We have plenty to eat. We’re not lacking. We don’t have this oppression that we had before.” But people don’t tend to do that. They want more, expect more even. “He is God, He should give us more. If He’s God shouldn’t we have more? The land, the abundance of land that He’s promised us, a land flowing with milk and honey, well, where is it?” We can be that way if we’re not careful. You’ve got a long journey before you get there. That forty years in the wilderness, whatever ours is, could well be forty years, could be fifty, could be sixty, could be twenty, whatever it is to get from one point to another, whatever that is where God can finally say, “Now, I know you.”

You have to go through a wilderness. You have to be in a spiritual wilderness like where we are, in that respect, as far as the world is concerned. It’s not God’s and it fights against us, it works against us, and it’s not that much fun sometimes. Being out in the desert, walking around out in the desert, living out in the desert and maybe having less and not being there yet, we think about those things. We think about what the future holds. We look forward to that. We know this isn’t it.

They didn’t grasp that, this isn’t it yet. “We’re doing this because of what we’ve done. We’re responsible for what’s taken place. We’re the ones that murmured and complained. We’re the ones that supported the spies who went and spied out the land and came back and gave a false report. We chose to believe that than to believe what God told us in the beginning, that it’s a land flowing with milk and honey. We chose that.”

I think of people who have chosen things that they’ve chosen to believe in life, chosen to think the worst, chosen to think, to be judgmental and harsh and not to understand there is a way that God works with us and how we’re supposed to think toward one another within the Body and toward God.

So, Harden not your heart. Don’t let it happen. Be thankful. Be grateful. Don’t let your heart become hardened. Because if you begin to turn inward, I think of some of those who have left not too long ago now, some in the ministry. They had every opportunity of things in life in front of them, of things they were able to accomplish and do and be a part of. And I think, their hearts became hardened, they began to be hardened toward us, toward the ministry, toward others in the ministry, toward others in the Church. They began to be very critical and judgmental toward others and not seeing God in their lives anymore, in others’ lives within the Body, within the Church. They became selfish and wanted something different, wanted ordination, whatever it might be, wanted sex that they weren’t supposed to have, wanted whatever it might be that people choose to leave God over and begin to be hardened toward others in the Church. It’s because of this guilty conscience. It’s because of a mindset. Then they can’t think right toward others around them anymore. It’s all because of ingratitude. It’s all because of selfishness, but selfishness is ingratitude. Selfishness is evil. Ingratitude is evil. That’s why we have to learn to think differently in things we do.

So it says, don’t harden your heart as they did, when your fathers tested Me and proved My work, proved Me and saw My work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said, It is a people who do err—How?—in their heart. This means in how they were thinking. They didn’t think with gratitude toward God. They didn’t choose to remember the good that God had given to them. Just to bring them through the Red Sea, other nations around for forty years had kept the stories of what had happened to Pharaoh and his armies – all destroyed – and they were fearful, especially as they saw them coming up toward Jericho. All these other nations, it was going around. They were fearful when they saw people beginning to move in a particular direction because they remembered what God had done. They remembered this people, this unique people, because there were things that happened that they knew could happen by no physical means. It was God who did it though they didn’t understand who He was and what had happened. But they were fearful of them, of their God, and so, not the Israelites.

When you’re living it, sometimes when we’re living it and we’re living things within the Church that’s our experience, that’s our thinking, and we can begin to be very selfish and very judgmental. But it’s always a matter of remembering God, looking to God, being thankful toward God, being thankful toward one another in the Body, seeing one another, that we need each other. Just like in society in the world, it doesn’t function unless everyone does their job. And when somebody doesn’t, when someone goes on strike like happens in Europe so often, transportation strikes, air strikes, trains shut down, whatever it is, it affects everyone. It happens more over there than, in essence, of what it does here. But there’s that mindset. You realize if everyone’s not doing their job how do we function, how do we work? How grateful, how thankful are we to everyone else for their work, for their sacrifice in life and what they’re giving to us? We’re on the receiving end. We’re on the getting end. But are we thankful or do we just take it for granted? And not only that, we begin to expect it. That’s what’s dangerous. You begin to expect things from people. You have expectation.

Most conflicts come because we have expectations of others. We think others should not have done this or done that or said this or said that, and when they don’t do that then we’re down on them, we’re criticizing them, we’re condemning them. Not thankful, not grateful. It all comes from the heart, from the mind and how we think.

Forty years long I grieved with this generation, He said, it’s a people who do err in their heart and they have not known My ways. Basically, unthankful for what God had given. That’s why they didn’t know God’s ways. To know God’s ways has to do with a mindset you have toward God, a thankfulness and a gratefulness, and then to see the bigger picture of the Church, of a Body and how we need each other within the Body, within the Church. Unto whom I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest. So there were those who weren’t allowed to come into the promised land. Thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands who were not allowed to come in the promised land. Instead they just died before it came that point in time. They didn’t live longer.

Colossians 3. So the whole point of this Psalm 92 is about the ability to, again, make a joyful noise before God. In other words, to have that joy and rejoicing in our heart and our mind toward this way of life, toward what God has given us regardless of what we might go through that’s difficult and hard, but if we can see it in the reality of life, “I need this in order to become something different, and be thankful to God for what He’s training me and teaching me and giving me when I do go through a difficult thing, whatever it might be in life, but to do it God’s way.”

Colossians 3:12—Put on, therefore, as the elect of God…

I just want to back up here a little bit thinking about the Body and how we think toward each other. We really need to have a mindset that we need each other to function as a body, because it’s God’s body. Of all things, this is the body of Joshua the Christ. It is the Body, in essence. It’s God’s Church. It is a spiritual body and it’s God’s. We do need each other within this body and He gives us opportunity for fellowship wherever we’re located, and how blessed are we if we’re able to have that? I feel for those who don’t have that on a regular basis, who can’t experience that on a regular basis. They have other means, whether it be telephone or internet or Skype or whatever some of those programs are called that are out there now. But, again, it’s this mindset of being thankful for everyone that God has given and realizing we need each other because it is God’s body and there are things we can learn and benefit from one another within that body. And so that goes back to a mind – are we thankful for each other?

Are we thankful for everyone who’s in the Body? That’s what we have to ask ourselves. Are we thankful for one another in the Body? When is the last time you thanked God for those who are in your area that you’re able to have fellowship with, whoever they are? Because, you see, what I see sometimes is the more people get to know each other, the longer that people have gotten to know each other, sometimes if this mindset isn’t there, if this mindset of gratitude and thankfulness isn’t there judgment can begin to come in and begin to look down upon or judge others. That’s a wrong mindset. It’s a mind of expectation of others. It’s a mind that demands something from others. It’s a mind of get and selfishness; oftentimes it can turn into that and a hardened heart and an inability to really rejoice.

You know, as a whole, we do rejoice, and when people get together within the body they rejoice, and that’s good. That goes back to reflecting there’s a thankfulness and a gratitude. The less that people can rejoice when they’re together with others something is going on, something is not right, something is not right in their thinking. Why can’t you rejoice when you’re around others in the Body? Does that bring about a spirit of rejoicing? How much are you thankful, then, for each one?

Colossians 3:12—Put on, therefore (as the elect of God, holy and beloved), bowels of mercies. Why? Because God’s been merciful to us. Shouldn’t we be merciful to others? Because if we’re not we’re not thankful. If we’re not we’re not truly thankful to God for the mercies He’s given to us, because for it to work properly in our mind and in our being and in our spirit there has to be a response to what we receive from God. To me, it’s nothing but sin, candidly. If we receive mercy from God, to the depth of spirit of mind that we’re thankful for that mercy, is going to reflect a great deal our mercy toward others and how we judge in life. Does the judgment come from God and God’s way or does it come from up here in how we think?

So there’s this mindset, and if we’re not showing mercy to others it goes back to, “Wait a minute, how thankful, how grateful, how realistic is it in my mind the mercy that God has given me?” How much do we rejoice in that mercy that He’s given? We’re excited, we’re thankful, we’re able to rejoice in the mercy that God has given, because without it what would that mean? There wouldn’t be rejoicing, I can guarantee you. But the more thankful we are the more likely, because of something that’s happening in the mind, we will become, we will be merciful to others.

So there’s this thing about relationships. There’s this thing about gratitude and thankfulness, if we have a mind of thankfulness toward God and the things we receive from Him. Just like forgiveness. There would be no conflict in relationships ever within the Church if we had this mindset in a stronger, more powerful way in our lives. But we are weak as human beings and sometimes we slip. But to slip on a constant basis in life? Sometimes some are just slipping on a constant basis and that isn’t right because it doesn’t reflect change, it doesn’t reflect true repentance. But if God grants us the ability to repent through Joshua the Christ and be forgiven of our sins who are we to harbor things, to hold things against others? We’re not supposed to anyway, and that is sin.

But I hope you’re seeing more that this has to do with how we think, whether it’s a thankfulness and a gratefulness to God, because if there is, how could we be less toward others? How could we be less in our thinking toward others? If God forgives us, who are we to hold on to something that we have no right to in the first place against someone else? We have to be willing to let go and that has to do with our mind and how we think.

…humility of mind…put on humility of mind. There is no place for pride and haughtiness and being lifted up. That means there’s no place for looking down on others. You know, a mindset toward God; the ability to hear God has to do with a mindset of humility, not of thinking of our self as important or great or whatever it might be, or lifted up. So often human beings—to me, this is such a perverted thing—where in order to feel better about ourselves and to lift ourselves up we tend to put others down. That’s what people do. It’s really a perverted thinking.

…meekness; a teachable spirit, willing to listen. This is good, because if we’re thankful for that, if we’re thankful for what God has shown us about being of a meek spirit, what that means in our relationship to Him, we should be of a teachable spirit, then we can learn from that because it can help us grasp through reality we don’t know it all. As human beings we have our opinions, and that means we kind of believe and act like we know what’s best in different kinds of situations. Well, the reality is, no, you don’t. No, we don’t. No, I don’t.

Situations are different and there are many choices that people have before them. Now, it might not be the choice you would make, but if it’s not a wrong choice and it’s a choice, so be it. They’ll work through that. They’ll live with that. They will learn from that. But for someone to judge someone else about the choice they’ve made whatever it might be? It can be the simplest things. Because I hear this a lot in the Church and things that people see out here, others doing and don’t think they should do it this way. You think, was it sin for them to do it that way? Was it wrong? If it’s not, it’s a choice. It may not be the way you would have done it, but it’s a choice and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are many choices people can make out here in life and not be wrong, not be sin.

So we have to be careful of how we think toward them. Our way isn’t the only way. Our way isn’t always the best way. Matter of fact, probably a lot of times it just isn’t. But see, this has to do with this thankfulness toward God, of what He’s teaching us about meekness, about a teachable spirit. Are we willing to learn from others? Sometimes people just aren’t of that mindset; they’re not willing to learn from others. Maybe in fellowship, are we willing, if we listen to something, hear something, maybe we can grow in understanding of something, why someone made a particular choice that they did. You think, “Yeah, that makes sense. I understand that,” whereas before maybe we criticized and condemned it.

I’m saying things that happen week after week after week in the environs of God’s Church. Longsuffering. Patience. How thankful are we to God that He is so longsuffering with us, patient? There wouldn’t be one of us here if He wasn’t because of our sins, because of our failures, and yet we are blessed to continually repent and God forgives us and He lifts us up to help us to go forward. What an awesome thing! Do we pass that along to others and give others the same latitude, the same opportunity in our thinking toward them, to be longsuffering, to be patient?

…forbearing one another. Now, in the English this doesn’t come across in always a positive way, but this is a very positive expression when understood what its saying. It’s a word that has to do with allowing for the differences. Even in the word “the longsuffering,” and some of that we just talked about, “forbearing one another,” allowing for the differences in others, different ideas, different ways of doing things, different choices that people make, allowing for those differences, that there’s not just one way of doing things.

…and forgiving one another; and if any man have a quarrel (a complaint) against any: even as Christ forgave you, so you do also. So it’s this mindset again of thankfulness toward God and extending that out toward others because we are grateful, because we are thankful, and because we are then we can learn to live right towards others.

And above all things put on the God’s love. How do you do that? It comes from God. It’s not something you can just automatically decide, “I’m going to go out today and I’m going to live God’s love.” You can’t do it. It has to come from God. It has to do with the way you think towards others. Everything we just went through before this expressed that love. Everything we just read is an expression of God’s love toward us. How do we live toward others? And if we understand what God has given to us then we should desire to give that to others, not to give evil for good. Because if we react, if we don’t respond, if God gives us mercy and we fail to be merciful that’s evil. That’s giving back something evil for something good.

That’s why I love that quote that we read in the beginning. If we receive something that is good from God, forgiveness, and we don’t forgive others? That’s evil. It’s giving evil for good. I’m going to read it again. “It has been stated that the sin of ingratitude is more serious than the sin of revenge. With revenge one returns evil for evil, but with ingratitude one returns evil for good.” That’s a perfect description here of what we’re discussing. If we receive something good from God or from others, but especially from God, because this is where it begins in our lives in the Church because of God’s spirit and the begettal of His spirit that we have, then if we fail to live that toward others who are we? Are we really grateful? Are we really thankful for what God has given to us?

And above all things put on love… So this is what we do. This is how we live some of these things towards others, which is the bond… and again, I love this word here, “binds together.” It’s something that binds together, that completes, which is the bond that completes. “Bond of perfection,” as it says in the New King James.

Verse 15—And let the peace of God rule in your hearts. So after reading things like this in the context of what we’re going through this is about what you can receive as a result of how we think. If we respond to God and He gives us that which is good and we extend that to others, then it’s giving good, not just back to God, not just being thankful to God, because we’re really not thankful to God for His forgiveness if we’re not forgiving others. I mean, because it’s not working what it’s designed, what God has given to us in His spirit to accomplish. So we can have a verbal expression, and say, “God, thank you for forgiving me whatever. Thank you for whatever it is You’ve given me.” Then if we turn right around and we don’t show that to others, we’re really not thankful to God. Because if we understand God, if we understand why God has given that to us, He’s given it for the very purpose that we can let that live, have that live through us. Because that’s what it is, having God’s love live through us is to receive it from God and then it lives, it produces something toward others. What a beautiful thing!

So forgiveness, we’re thankful for and we forgive others, we’re forgiving toward others, mercy, and we extent mercy. Whatever it is we receive from God and we’re thankful, that’s how God’s love actually lives through us. This is what helps you to be more joyful and more happy spiritually in life.

And above all things put on love, God’s love, which is the bond, that which binds together, that completes, perfection, in other words, that’s what this word is here, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you are called in one body, and be thankful. That’s what its saying. It’s wrapping it up and saying be thankful because this is what it’s all about. This is how you live it. The peace of God that you can have live in you, if God is forgiving to us and we are toward others, if God gives us patience and we give that toward others, then there’s a peace that we can experience spiritually on a spiritual plane. It’s about being thankful.

…be thankful, to the which you are called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of  Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So this is really a very deep expression here that comes out from deep inside of us on a spiritual plane, not a physical, carnal plane. It goes back to this attitude of gratitude toward God, of thankfulness toward God, if that exists in us then this joy that we have toward God for what He’s given us, especially within the Church and one another that we have within the Church.

Again, how grateful are we for one another, for God’s family? You can say, “Well, I’m grateful to God.” Well, are we grateful for all in God’s family? Because that’s an expression of God. Each one of us, we are unique. Each one of us has God’s spirit dwelling within them, transforming them, and He’s blessed us to have that in a fellowship. We have a fellowship with God when we pray, but He gives us fellowship with one another to experience something about a family on a spiritual plane that’s made possible by Him. It’s a beautiful thing.

If we don’t experience those things we become hardened in heart and people quit, people leave, people give up, because they don’t grasp, are not truly thankful to God for what they’ve been given. I’ve seen this happen so much it becomes wearisome in the Church, but it’s a part of a process. I’m grateful for those who remain, grateful for those who continue to fight, because you have to fight for this way of life. You have to want this way of life and fight for it. God’s teaching us more and more how to do that in a better spirit and more correct spirit with greater understanding.

So it says, And whatever you do in word or deed do in the name of the Lord Joshua, giving thanks to God and the Father through him. So it’s a complete circle. What an awesome thing, when you receive mercy and you know you’ve had to change something in your thinking, you’ve had to address something that you might normally react in a certain way and you choose mercy, or whatever it might be. You have certain feelings and it’s hard for you to let go of a particular matter toward someone else, but because of a reaction, a response, if you will, toward God, you know you’ve been forgiven when you’ve prayed to Him about certain things you have done that are very wrong and you know that you receive forgiveness and it’s gone as far as God’s concerned, and you know that you’ve had to address something in your thinking and how you just give it away. Why hold on to anything?

When you’ve done that God lets us experience something on a spiritual plane that is rich and meaningful. And how do you explain it? It’s a peace; it’s a joy because you realize you have had a battle against your own human nature and how you think towards someone and because of a mind of gratitude and thankfulness God’s let you experience a joy that you otherwise couldn’t experience. There is something in that that is very rewarding.

He says, whatever you do in word or deed do in the name Joshua, giving thanks to God the Father through him. So after you’ve done that then it goes back to God again. “Thank you, Father, for helping me to address this in a right way.” It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a right thing.

Well, we can spend some more time on looking at some of those things, but again, things to think about as we pray, things to think about as we go through some of these things even in our prayers to God.

So again, rather than focusing upon responding to God’s good that He shows us – because that’s all that God shows us all the time. Again, because of human nature one can tend to respond with ingratitude. It’s just the way we are as human beings and we have to be careful of that. We can respond with selfishness and often, again, expectation of others. Not even thinking about it, not even thinking about what others do and their giving and what they do in giving. We can learn from that and give ourselves. It can happen in the simplest of things in life.

We can have what we call potlucks in the church and what we do and what we give in participating in that can reflect a lot about us. What do we do? Because over the years I’ve seen all kinds of things and I’ve seen people learn through that process as well. It’s a good place and everything we have and encounter within the Church we have opportunities to learn. But sometimes they have to be pointed out to us so that we can learn from them, so we can learn, “There is a certain way I should respond. I’m not just on the getting end of this.” Basically, a potluck means we all participate, we all share, we all pitch in to the degree we’re able. If we’re not able to then that’s fine, but sometimes when we have various kinds of functions there have been situations where those, there are some who never bring anything but they want to eat, they expect to eat, they enjoy it.

Well, think about it. What about all the others? How grateful are we that we have such an opportunity to share extra time with one another? Because there is something about food and sharing of food together that we enjoy. We’re able to visit with each other longer for a longer period of time rather than just heading back home or whatever it might be. Yet even in that we can learn to contribute. So there are things to think about. How grateful am I for everything that others have done in making this possible? What am I doing? Am I a part of it? Now, we don’t want to just be a part of it where we’re just receiving and on the receiving end.

To be a part of something like that as with so many things in God’s Church means that we have to give in it as well. A fellowship isn’t one-sided. Fellowship can’t be just one person going up. We’re all different. We all have different things in our thinking, in our minds, and for some it may be very difficult. But we need to strive to do that. We need to strive to be with others. We need to strive to share our fellowship with others, especially when a congregation gets larger and larger. That becomes even more challenging. Smaller, that’s not as difficult, but in a larger congregation that can be more challenging. I’ve seen that ever since I’ve been in God’s Church. You know, we need to learn to give and to give to each other and to strive to include everyone and not just be exclusive to a certain few or whatever it might be.

That’s like a potluck. What are we giving? What are we sharing in this process? So we can see something like that on a physical plane and the enjoyment we can receive from it when others come to us or bring food to us. Do we give food to them? See, that’s what we’re talking about here. Again, it’s a two-way street and we can learn from that. We should learn from that.

A lot of this goes back to thankfulness. How thankful are we? We don’t want to become hard-hearted to where we just get to a point in time where this is kind of what we expect from others. Or do we just try to get by sometimes? Sometimes people just try to get by just a little bit. What did we put into it?

Psalm 103. You don’t want to return evil for good, because selfishness can become evil in how it’s seen, how it’s received by others, and we can actually begin to turn inward even in something as basic and simple as people getting together and eating. If we can see that then we can magnify that and see it in other areas of our life and our relationship within the Church and even others around us.

Psalm 103:1—Bless the Eternal, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. How do you do that? What does that mean? To think about God when we pray especially, and you’re thinking about your very being, “O my life.” I mean, that’s what this “our soul,” that’s what it’s about. It’s about our life, the life that God has given to us. He’s given us a life that we can express something to God.

Bless the Eternal, O my soul, my life. Do we? Does it? Does my life indeed honor God, respect God, love God, thank God for everything He has done and continues to do? Because that’s a mindset. …and all that is in me bless His holy name. How do we think toward God and how true is it? Because the degree to which it’s true is reflected in how we then respond to others around us in life.

Bless the Eternal, O my soul, and do not forget all His benefits. We’re actually being told by this, don’t stop thinking about the benefits, the blessings that God gives to you in life. We are charged with a responsibility to think about those things because if we don’t we begin to take them for granted. We can even begin to expect things of God like the Israelites did, “Why aren’t You getting me out of this situation? If you are God and I’m in the Church and I’ve done all this in the Church why aren’t You doing more for me?” That would scare the tar out of me, but people have done it, people do it from time to time. They go through a hardship and it’s like finding fault with God that He doesn’t intervene. I’ll tell you, that kind of thing would scare the tar out of me. It does, to think anyone would think that way. They don’t know what they’re bringing down upon themselves. Don’t you understand what God has given to you? It’s incredible, such mindset.

So it’s a matter of gratitude and thankfulness we have toward God and not to be expecting more from Him. We may go through certain hardships and want His intervention, but we better have the mind of Christ too. “Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.” God has a purpose for things we go through in life and we can learn from that and He can work with us to mold and fashion us, then so be it, move forward.

It’s like this post that’s coming out in about a week and a half. We have a target date for that and the reason I’ve chosen that target date, I’m going to mention, is because I started writing it on Pentecost. To me that was moving, the content of what’s being spoken of, and thinking about a year from now, Pentecost, and then thinking about the time it takes to edit it and work with it so I thought what an awesome thing, it’s going to be June the 9th when it goes up, because June the 9th next year is Pentecost. So started writing it on Pentecost; it’s going to be posted on the day, one year from now (if we understand what I’m saying here), June the 9th. That’s what we desire, that our heart, our minds are set on that. That is what we’re working toward, but understanding full well as mentioned in that particular article as it’s going to discuss, this thing about the Day of the Lord. 50 days? If we can have that we will be exceedingly blessed, this world will be exceedingly blessed. But we will as well.

But if there are things to be worked with in the world, whether it be in the world or in the Church, if it’s God’s purpose, not my will but God’s be done. God has the prerogative, and things are in a different kind of flux, fluid than what they were before. They’re not set because everything, in that respect, is different in the sense that God has given more time and God, well, He gave seven more years. Things are not the same and so much depends now upon people’s response to God and to whether people are listening to God and whether, in some cases, nations are listening to God.

I think of how this past week Russian went up on the site for the book. We’ve received yesterday, the Philippine language, and it is finished, and that will be going up in due time. I believe Swedish is the one that’s in the hopper right now, the last one of those that are already finished that will go up, and then the Philippine language, once that’s completed will be going up. It used to be a huge church for the Worldwide Church of God. At least God had called a lot of people in the Philippine region, and at one point in time I believe it was a third and fourth at different stages there, largest as far as different nations in the number of people there in Worldwide. So to me that’s exciting, and we continue to work on these things.

But you know, if there’s some purpose, some reason – not that I want to see it, not that any of us want to see it – but if there’s a purpose, we go on another year and God can give the definition of one year. Whatever God gives the definition of; if something changes, He can fulfill His own prophetic word. Right now it’s the 50. That’s why I said what I did. We’ve lived through this before, that a prophetic period of time can be whatever God desires. If it doesn’t, if it’s not within that period of time, one more year, then the most likely thing after that is many years. It would have to because we understand that Joshua the Christ must return on a Pentecost. It has to happen within a specific configuration of time. God is very precise in how things are counted and so it would have to be many more years beyond in order to fulfill that.

Now, I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see that for the Church. I don’t want to see that for the world. But that’s the way it’s been through time. We want to see the return of Joshua the Christ, the King of kings. That’s our heart and our desire, but if there’s a purpose to go beyond it, so be it. God has taught us through what we have already gone through that living this way of life is about this way of life. It’s about living the truths He’s given to us and whatever is placed before us, if there’s a purpose for a certain direction to go, we go that direction, whatever we’re to go through so be it, whatever purpose there is behind it.

So I throw those things out, that we be prepared, that we be ready in our mind and in our thinking, but our focus is one year from Pentecost. Awesome to think of the potential and the possibilities of what is happening in this world. I’ve been thinking about, and perhaps that’s what’s coming, I don’t know, another section of going into certain news things that are happening and putting them in a context of where we are since the last one we went through, because things have really speeded up in this world since we even went through that. So we live in some incredible times. We truly do.

But again, going through this where it says this in Psalm 103:1—Bless the Eternal, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Eternal, O my soul, and do not forget all His benefits. So I think of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness for forty years, and I think about our wandering, and especially since the Apostasy, and a remnant, a small group of people that God has taken through a spiritual wilderness.

Because the Church that was scattered doesn’t know they were scattered. The Church that has been going through what they have gone through do not understand that they were spewed out of God’s mouth because of a Laodicean spirit. They don’t understand what happened to the temple. They don’t grasp simple, basic things that you are able to see and understand about who we are and how blessed we are to be a part of something so small, so tiny.

Yet just like with those translations, God can use it ever how He wants to whatever degree, whatever power He desires. It’s within His power. We have the technology today that it’s amazing what could happen very quickly, very easily with peoples and with nations. But that’s God’s purpose and that’s in God’s hands. We just have to be a part and participate where God leads us and works with us.

So that’s what we’ve been doing. That’s what we’ve done with the translations. I think of different languages we haven’t translated into because God didn’t provide it. If God provided it, if it was His will to provide it and had a purpose in doing it we would have it.

So when I see things and see what’s been done I step back and I marvel and think, “What does this mean for them? What is God working here and how is He going to work it out?” Because we’re going to stand back and see some awesome things take place in the months to come.

So, don’t forget His benefits. Thinking about who we are, the ability to see what we do just because of the Apostasy itself. Sometimes I feel that we don’t grasp how much we’ve been given. A small, little body, a small body of people, and God being able to do what He’s doing with us, through us, and the purpose of sharing in it but God making it very clear to us and to the world and to the Church that was scattered, “Not by might, nor by power, but by His spirit” these things are being accomplished. God’s doing it.

I’m thankful that we’re small in that regard, so that no one can be lifted up and think, “Look what we did,” because that’s what the Church got to a point, “Look what we’re doing.” No, we’re not. It’s what God’s doing. We follow Him where He leads. We accomplish things to the degree He blesses us to accomplish them and no more. If it’s His work, it’s His work.

Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases. Speaking of afflictions, sicknesses, pain, suffering, whatever that means. It might mean something for the future. It might mean immediate. I’ve seen all kinds of things in the Church and how God has worked with us in our lives, but if we understand what this means, of what God is doing, He’s doing it. He heals. It’s a healing process we’re going through. It doesn’t mean we receive everything right away. It doesn’t mean that the mind changes because so much of this healing has to do with what’s up here and how we think. He heals that which is diseased in the mind, in our thinking that’s wrong in life, and He transforms that. That’s the greatest blessing of all. But we tend to think physically and physical is a part of it, and that will be taken care of with, as well in time.

We get older, our bodies get weaker, we see it, we experience it; I experience it. Talk to anyone who’s gotten older as a whole and people experience things about the body. It’s not getting younger. It’s not going through a healing process and getting more energetic, going toward its thirties and forties you know, late, mid thirties. It doesn’t work that way. It starts falling apart. It starts running down. There are interventions that God gives to us, but that’s not what this is about. This is about that which is happening in the mind. This is about that which is happening in our lives that God will take care of that as well. We have a different body He’s giving us.

I’m sick of this one. I really am. Human life, it’s a necessity, it’s a part of the plan, but I’m looking forward to a change. I really am. I hope it’s within that year.

Verse 4—who redeems your life from destruction. God’s called us out of the world and He begins to do something in our lives, because people in this world it just gets worse and worse and worse. The older a person gets the more destructive the mind becomes, the more unbalanced the mind becomes through time. It’s just a part of a process of human nature and human life. Think of the blessings of what God has given you to be able to see things in a proper perspective.

You’re able to see things that are happening between nations and people now that they don’t understand. They don’t understand what’s going on out there and why. They don’t understand why things are happening now with North Korea to the degree they are. They don’t understand what’s happening because of what’s taken place now between Iran and the United States, and then Europe and the United States. They don’t understand how this is affecting the thinking of nations and people. Incredible what’s taking place that you see. So how thankful are we for what we have when even world leaders can’t see what you see, nor understand the purpose? They don’t know why this is happening in this manner. They get all caught up in it and it leads to war.

…who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. That’s how God treats us and works with us. It’s how we’ve always been worked with by God, tender mercies, loving kindness. …who satisfies your mouth with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. What does that mean? I’m not getting younger. It’s spirit. It’s the spirit life. It’s the transformation and what God is giving to us, this being strengthened.

I marvel, since the Apostasy, of how much God has given to us; and the farther we go into all this the more insight and understanding God gives to us about how He does what He does, how He functions, how He works. We haven’t understood this in large part in times past. We weren’t there as a Body when God was restoring truth to the Church through Philadelphia, in Philadelphia, and then we went through the period of Laodicea we really didn’t understand many of the workings of God and how He does what He accomplishes, but He’s showing us those things now in a way that we’ve never understood them.

To me that’s exciting because it’s part of preparing for His Kingdom. It’s a part of preparing for what God’s going to give in such a massive way to people in this world, to understand why things have happened the way they have over 6,000 years, and especially toward the end of an age.

…who satisfies your mouth with good and your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Eternal executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed. But again, this is a message to God’s Church, always has been because the example here is Israel always or continually forgot because they didn’t try to remember what God did for them. Again, that goes back to a relationship with God, what we remember, what we choose to think upon that God gives us in favor and blessings.

That’s why I’m saying this. If we don’t think about where God has brought us as a Church, what He’s given to us since the Apostasy, what He’s given to a small group of people, what you have been the benefactor of, because you have received that which is awesome. God has worked through people for 6,000 years who have sacrificed to bring this to this time, people who have gone before and all that God has done to bring us to this time. So again, it goes back to how we think.

So again, selfishness is evil. Ingratitude is evil. We need to strive, as a result of hearing this particular series, to begin thinking more in a mindset of gratitude and thankfulness to God for all things. That’s a lot. That’ll keep you busy.

What does that mean in your life? Well, we’re charged with thinking about that in our prayers and we’re charged to think about that then in our thinking in our relationship toward others, and even others in the world around us, how do we think toward them?

So this refusal or unwillingness to think like that or to think upon those things which are good, that come to us freely, well, would be evil. Yet this is what’s been happening in God’s Church for 2,000 years. Those who have gone by the wayside, this reflects what they did and how they thought and what was in the mind.

Let’s turn over to one other area here before we close today. I’m reminded of this year by year by year and this really helps to drive it home even more so. I marvel at how God has given us this to think upon for so many years now consistently at the Feast of Tabernacles. So if you’d like to turn over to Deuteronomy 16. We are never to forget the blessings, the ways of God, the truths of God that He has and continues to pour out upon us as His people. We have to think about that in order for that to be accomplished. In order for us to be thankful we have to think about what He has really given to us, to remember it. Israel didn’t. We’re supposed to. It has everything to do with how we can grow spiritually stronger.

Deuteronomy 16:13—You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, after that you have gathered in your grain and your winepress. For us it’s a reminder every year, a special time that God has given to think about God’s plan. This brings us up to what? The Millennium. That’s where we are. So they came to the Feast of Tabernacles, they were to think upon certain things. As a matter of fact, the booths they built—we’ve gone through this in sermons—they made these little booths and they were to go and sit there and think about what God had done in bringing them out of Egypt, if you will, bringing them through the wilderness, and they were to reflect back on the things that God had done for them as a people and for them individually in their own lives as they observed this period of time. They were to think about things that God had done for them, the blessings of God.

So we’ve talked about this, the very purpose of why they made these little booths, little structures at the Feast of Tabernacles, that they were to go there for the purpose of meditating or thinking about what God had given them. To me that’s an awesome picture because of what He says here that we’re to do then. So we’ve gathered in so we’re able to what? We’re able to reflect back. We’ve gathered in. What have we gathered in? What is the most important in our minds? What do we think upon?

When we come to the Feast of Tabernacles we are to reflect back over the previous year and over our entire calling. What has God given us? What has been produced in our lives as a result of His spirit working in us? How have we benefitted on a spiritual plane? It’s easy to think about certain things and get caught up with strictly the physical, but even that we should think about. How blessed are we?

And notice it goes on to say, And you shall rejoice in your Feast, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates. Incredible! God just says we’re to rejoice. Well, it goes back to this command here. It’s a command. You are to rejoice. But for us we understand this has to be spiritual to be real.

Now, I’ve known of many people in times past in the Church of God through time who have gone to the Feast of Tabernacles and they didn’t obey this. They didn’t rejoice. They came with a wrong spirit. Some came because they desired to be somewhere else, maybe with someone else. That was more important to them. Or they came with a spirit of envy and jealousy, whatever it might be toward different ones within the Body and this was eating them up. So when they would be around certain people it was eating them up inside. They can’t stay very long when that begins to happen.

Everyone who’s gone astray goes through this process and if they go through the Feast of Tabernacles period they go through this process, something that’s eating away at them spiritually inside. It’s happened to more than who have remained in God’s Church through time. Many are called and few are chosen.

And you shall rejoice in your Feast, so it says this, Seven days and you shall keep a solemn Feast unto the Eternal your God in the place which the Eternal shall choose, because the Eternal your God shall bless you in all your increase, so even at the Feast of Tabernacles. But this is something we’re to do all year long, to go before God, to think upon this, because it doesn’t just happen.

Thankfulness and gratitude is not a natural product of human thinking. It really isn’t. We can learn certain things growing up. We can exercise some of those things growing up. We can learn, indeed, to have a certain kind of thankfulness for specific things, but to have this in a very rich way, in a very living way day by day in our thinking to the point that it makes that which is inside of you toward God be thankful and rejoice even more in what He’s called you to be a part of, that’s an awesome thing.

We have to think upon the things that God has placed before us in this life because of a calling we have. He wants us to think about those things in minute areas of our life. What has He given you?

So in our prayers indeed as a result of the first part of this we had a few weeks back, and now as a result of this one and the one that will come up, we should think about this a lot more in our prayers. What do I have to be thankful to God for? What has He given me? What has He placed before me? Where have I increased? What have I gathered in that would be impossible without Him?

…because the Eternal your God shall bless you in all your increase… True increase in life, that which is truly meaningful comes from God. …and in all the work of your hands. What have we been able to be part of? What are we able to do? What are we able to share in that we’ve shared it? Because we’re all sharing in this work, we really are. It’s God’s work, but we’re all blessed we’ve been called to participate. Awesome! Therefore, you shall surely rejoice.

Again, we’re always to be thankful, not negative, not focused upon what we don’t have, not to take for granted things we receive that are given by others, and especially not take for granted that which God Almighty and His Son, Joshua the Christ, give to us.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1