A Thankful Heart and Multiplied Grace

Summary

This midweek Easter-season service opens with the cry Christ is risen. The first brother preaches that thanksgiving is the believer's whole way of life. He points to Romans 4, that Christ was raised for our justification, and to 1 Thessalonians 5:18, to give thanks in everything. A grateful heart, like the merry heart of Proverbs 17:22, brings health and peace, while ingratitude and murmuring darken the soul.

He shares a costly testimony: the loss of his newborn child in Ukraine, and how the words of Job, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, carried him through grief while he felt God draw near. Later, he says, God blessed the family with another child, a reminder that gratitude glorifies God even in the hardest hours.

A visiting brother, Michael from Atlanta, then preaches on the multiplying of God's grace. From 1 Peter 2:9 he calls the church a chosen people called out of darkness into marvelous light, and from 2 Peter 1 and Malachi 3 he shows that grace, peace, healing, and God's precious promises increase to overflowing for those who come to Him, fear Him, and lift their eyes to Him in trouble.

Key Points

• Thanksgiving is not a passing mood but the lifestyle of a child of God.
• A grateful heart heals and steadies us, while murmuring and ingratitude darken the soul.
• Even in loss we can bless the name of the Lord, as Job did, and find God nearest in the trial.
• We are a chosen people, called out of darkness into His marvelous light.
• God's nature is to multiply, not diminish: grace upon grace for those who come to Him.
• In the day of trouble call on Him, for He gives rest, sleep, and peace to those He loves.
• Grace is also healing power, and the church prays in faith for the sick.