Spiritual Strength For Each Day
“We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers” (1 Thessalonians 1:2).
Many believers waste their energy in prayer by telling the Lord how difficult it is to live with this or that person, even tell Him all the negative things about that person. But when you learn to give thanks to the Lord instead, you will give thanks for all people. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you” (Philippians 1:3). The Philippians were wonderful and faithful children of God, who were also loyal to Paul. We could, therefore, say it was easy to give thanks for them, according to the principle: if you are nice to me, I will be nice to you! But Paul also gave thanks for the difficult and annoying people. We see this in 1 Corinthians 1:4, “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.” The Corinthians had hardly grown in their faith lives. They gave Paul a lot of trouble, and he had to earnestly admonish them. But he began to give thanks for them. What could he give thanks for? There was so much strife, envy and slander in the church at Corinth, and they had attacked him. What could Paul give thanks for, then? “For the grace of God.” Even in the most difficult believers, we can still find the best of all: “the grace of God.”
