Thanksgiving Is A Warfare Strategy by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Deliberate Expression of Gratitude

Thanksgiving, at its most basic, is the deliberate expression of gratitude in response to benefits received. Most of us are flimsy and flippant with it. We rarely reflect on the true extent of a favor before we respond to it. Genuine thanksgiving must be proportional to the size of the favor shown, not just a polite reflex.

Much of what God does is never made obvious. Like a parent who packs a child's school bag with food before the child is even conscious enough to know he will be hungry, God often provides long before we notice the provision, and much of it we will only discover was His hand once we reach eternity. It is not every miracle that will be obvious. Some you will only discover in heaven.

Deuteronomy 8:10

Thanksgiving is tied to what has already been received: you eat, you are satisfied, and you bless the Lord for the land He gave.

Deuteronomy 8:17-18

A warning against saying in your heart that your own strength and the power of your hand produced your wealth, when it is God who gives the power to get wealth.

Thanksgiving Is Not a Response, It Is a Trigger

Praise and thankfulness are not merely a response to what God has already done. They are a trigger for what He is about to do. Scripture instructs believers to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. That is the protocol for approaching His presence, not a reward handed out afterward.

Philippians 4:6

In everything, by prayer and supplication, requests are made known to God with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving belongs at the front of a request, not the back.

Learn to thank forward. Jesus, faced with five loaves and two fish for five thousand people, did not ask the Father to multiply anything. He simply lifted the bread and gave thanks, and it multiplied. What is merely broken and eaten will finish. What is broken with thanksgiving will multiply.

John 6:23

The boats that came to the place where the crowd ate bread after the Lord had given thanks made that location a landmark. That is a pattern worth walking in: a life marked by "we saw this door open after we had given thanks," "we entered this season after we had given thanks."

A Warfare Strategy

Thanksgiving is also a warfare strategy.

Psalm 18:3

Calling upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, is what results in being saved from one's enemies. Thanking Him in advance is not because deliverance has already come, but because it will.

Unthankfulness itself is named as a mark of the last days.

Romans 1:20-21

Even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were they thankful.

2 Timothy 3:1-2

In the last days, perilous times will come, and among the list of what marks those times is that people will be unthankful.

Losing Yourself in Praise

When people are playing David, do not play Michal. Do not sit back and criticize others for losing composure in praise while you remain unmoved. Whatever your achievements or position, before the throne none of it is worth holding onto tightly. Lay it all down before Him, for the past and for the future.