Grateful in ALL

When reading your bible, do you notice how The word "all" is used so much! When I read the word "all", I know that God wants me to give 100% to what it says.

As many of you know, my theme scripture in 2020 was 1 Thessalonians 5:18 where Paul tells us to be grateful in ALL our circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.

God wants us to be 100% grateful. He doesn't say we can pick and choose the circumstance we want to be grateful for.

As I was reading my bible this morning, another "all" stood out (actually, several "all's" - I'll focus on one this morning and get the others tomorrow )

Ephesians 6:16 tells us "In ALL circumstances take up the shield of faith.." There's that word "circumstances" again.

Now I understand why we are to ask God to increase our faith.

We're to be grateful in ALL circumstances and we're to have faith in ALL circumstances.

Did you grasp that? Gratitude AND Faith in every single thing going on in our life!!

I know many of you are struggling with some tough stuff in your life right now. How's your gratitude and faith towards the tough stuff?

If it's not an "ALL", then pray and ask God to increase your gratitude and faith. Pray and ask for His help to have gratitude and faith.

Look at what the rest of Ephesian 6:16 says when you take up the shield of faith in all circumstances, "...with which you can extinguish ALL the flaming darts of the evil one (the devil!)"

The devil is going to do everything in his power to discourage you and to cause you to doubt God. He's going to make you think God doesn't care. He's going to do his best to turn you away from gratitude and faith.

If you are having some doubts and discouragement, I plead with you to pray and study and pray more. God knows you are struggling and He wants you to turn to Him so He can give you the peace and comfort that only He can give - 2 Corinthians 1:3,4

Reach out to someone you trust who will encourage you in your faith and will pray with you.

I care and I'm here for you.

Gratitude and faith in ALL circumstances. It is possible to make it happen. God would not ask you to do it if it weren't.