A Grateful Heart Is A Heart that is Ready For An Increase

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

2 Samuel 6:12

Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of God had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. David, wearing a linen ehpod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

Its another beautiful opportunity to share the word of God with God's wonderful people. People who are fearfully and wonderfully made by the Most High God in His glorious image. I am so positively sure that we will have a good year this 2016.

So we continue on the series of secrets to God’s divine increase in our financial life as a means to combat some pressing challenges in our marriages. And I will like to tag today’s post as “A grateful heart is a heart ready for increase.” I pray and hope that we are able to apply some of these knowledge in our lives and test God in His word for a divine visitation of His abundance. I am so very positive that God will not fail if we don’t fault in our obedience.

David was a man declared as a man after God’s heart. The Lord loved and favoured him and everyone knows about King David. But one secret I have found in David’s life is the secret of gratitude. David was a man who used every means within his reach to show gratitude to God. His words, his life, his singing, his dancing, his money, his everything was spent expressing his praise to God and giving Him all the glory.

It was David who confronted Goliath and said he was coming against him (Goliath) in the name of the Lord God of the army of Israel (1 Samuel 17:45-47). It appeared that of all the soldiers in the army formation of Israel including David’s elder brothers and King Saul, only this little boy David understood that the secret to their success in battle was to acknowledge the Lord. And because David acknowledged God, the Lord came through for him.

It was David who said he could not offer a sacrifice to God that cost him nothing (1 Chronicles 21:24). Irrespective of what David did to warrant him offering a sacrifice to God, he realized that what he was going to give to God must not come cheap. Now note this: at the time that David made this statement, Jesus had not come, He had not died for our sins, so you can then imagine that the sacrifice that God gave on our behalf which is the blood of His only son as a price for our sins did not come cheap. So if we say we love God and expect His love in return, then like David we cannot afford to offer cheap sacrifices to God.

David was a man who knew how to be grateful to God in songs and hymns. The book of Psalms says a whole lot about that. He sang joyfully to the Lord and appreciated Him for all the goodness He had received from God. Even when he sinned, he prayed and praised his way to receiving forgiveness from God. So knowing David for who he was and the place he gave to God in his life, will you blame God for blessing such a man and making his name great among all nations? Or will you blame God for declaring David a man after His heart? But God is not a partial God, if you and I can replicate David’s deed and even take it a little further, then we will receive the same blessings as David and even much more.

Another secret about David’s life was that he knew the God he served, in 1 Samuel 17:37, he revealed God had once delivered him from the paw of the lion and the bear, so he knew God could deliver and was convinced that God would deliver and so he trusted God and boasted in the ability of God. 

In the theme scripture of this post, we see David dancing and making sacrifices to God as the ark of covenant was brought up into the city of David. As a wise king that David was, he knew that the presence of God signified by the ark of God carried a blessing with it. The Bible said the Lord had blessed the whole house of Obed-Edom and everything he had because of the ark of God that was in his house. So wise David ran quickly to get the ark and brought it to the city of David. Now will you fault David for dancing and sacrificing when he had seen a sample of what happened to Obed-Edom and understands the huge blessing entering into his city as a result of the coming in of the ark of God? 

We do not have the ark of God anymore but we have the presence of God in our lives in the form of the Holy Spirit and only the wise like David will offer up sacrifices of praise and worship to God just because of the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Just like the house of Obed-Edom was blessed so much that people could see and talk about, so is our lives destined to be so blessed that people can see and talk about just as a result of the presence of the Holy-Spirit in our lives. Joseph prospered everywhere he went because the Lord was with him (Genesis 39:2-6), so while as a slave, he prospered and his prosperity was so great that it extended to his master and so Potiphar was blessed by God just because of the blessing in the life of Joseph.

So in this year 2016, we the children of God will enjoy unlimited blessings as we learn to reverence the Spirit of God in our lives. Just like David we will learn to give our all to God as we begin to praise and worship Him in the little blessings and watch Him elevate us to greater blessings. Jesus said once we are faithful in little things then we prove ourselves ready for greater blessings (Luke 16:10-12).

In conclusion I have learnt the secret of success to be a grateful heart. When I learn to appreciate God for the little gifts I get, then I know that it’s just a matter of time for the big ones to come in. In Jesus Name our homes will receive a refreshing from God and we will receive our breakthroughs this year 2016 to the glory of God alone.