How to Stay Sane and Alive
When you were born again, the desire to please God and do His will became part of your nature. You don’t have to work it up; it comes naturally. What many believers don’t know is that God did not put that desire in us and then make His will something so obscure that we couldn’t discover and accomplish it. The will of God instinctively becomes the will of believers through intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
The will of God is not complicated. Many young people ask me to pray for them saying, “I just want to know what God’s will is for my life.” I often tell them that I already know what God’s will is. It is found in the Lord’s Prayer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). God’s will is simply for Heaven’s reality to become earth’s reality.Our Role in Fulfilling “As it is in Heaven”We are God’s delegated authority. As such, our obedience plays an important role in seeing the will of God accomplished on the earth. In First Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul instructs us to: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Two things in this statement stand out. First of all, the will of God is not merely focused on whether we become a doctor or a teacher or whether we’re supposed to have tuna or peanut butter for lunch. It is focused on what we do to position our heart in relationship to God at all times, in all circumstances. Secondly, rejoicing, praying and thanksgiving are all acts of our will that, particularly in times of difficulty, weakness and uncertainty, require faith. They are activities that draw our focus to Heaven so we can agree with what is true, no matter what we feel or perceive with our physical senses and emotions. And since our agreement is what attracts the strength and reality of Heaven into our lives and circumstances, it makes sense that these activities fulfill the will of God expressed in the Lord’s Prayer—on earth as it is in Heaven. The transformation of the heart is the first step in bringing heaven to earth.
Because rejoicing, prayer, and thanksgiving attract heaven; they are vital tools for strengthening ourselves in the Lord. You’ll notice that all of them are meant to be continuously ongoing in our lives. They’re not reserved for crises or holidays. They’re a lifestyle—as are all the tools that we use to minister to ourselves. A big reason for this is that in the midst of crisis and difficulty, it is usually hard if not impossible to sit down and reason out how we should respond. Difficulty has a way of exposing the degree to which our lives and minds have been truly transformed by a heavenly perspective for certain responses to be habitual. The things we practice as a lifestyle equip us for difficulties.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving agrees with Heaven by acknowledging the truth that our lives are a gift from God, and that He is sovereign over all. God is extravagantly generous, and the life He has given us to experience on this planet is not a life of survival, but of abundance and blessing. But unless we properly recognize what we’ve been given, we won’t be able to experience that life. That’s the reality of receiving a gift. If we don’t understand what we’ve been given, we won’t understand its purpose and be able to experience its benefit.Imagine Christmas morning. You’ve spent the last few months shopping and picking out unique gifts for each of your family members that show your intimate knowledge of their interests and desires. You have spared no expense to get gifts of the highest quality that will be both enjoyable and beneficial to each person. But when your family comes to the Christmas tree, one person completely ignores the presents. Another person opens your gift, but starts using it for something other than what it was made for. Still another just holds the gift, and refuses to unwrap it.
And to make matters worse, none of them even acknowledge that their gifts are from you. Can you see how these responses are not only foolish, but are deeply harmful to the relationship?Sadly, this is how many Christians respond to God’s gifts, particularly the gifts of the Spirit. So many people fail to receive what the Lord has offered them because they don’t understand what the gifts are or how to use them. They say ridiculous things like, “Well, tongues is the least of the gifts, so I don’t need to pursue it.” If my children said this about one of the presents I had put under the tree for them, I’d be very upset. I’d say, “This is yours! I don’t care how small you think it is. I bought it with you in mind, and I don’t give cheap gifts. If you’ll just open it, I’ll show you what it is and how to use it.” Such a rejection of gifts is absolute arrogance.
Thankfulness carries an attitude of humility. Thanksgiving is the only proper way to receive what God has given us because it honors our relationship with Him by expressing trust in His goodness, even if we don’t yet understand what we’ve received. God gives us “every good and perfect gift” for two primary reasons. He gives to make us prosper so we can succeed in life, and He gives to demonstrate His love as an invitation to relationship. When we practice thanksgiving as a lifestyle, we recognize that the gifts we have received from the Lord came with these purposes. Thanksgiving sets us on a course to know God in relationship and discover the reasons for which He made us.
The Great Price of Little Thanks
When God tells us to give Him thanks, He’s not insinuating that He gives in order to get something from us. He doesn’t manipulate us with His gifts. He wants us to thank Him because thankfulness acknowledges the truth about our lives. And when we agree with the truth, then the truth sets us free to see and manifest the greatness that He has put in us as the ones He has made in His image. When we withhold thanks from God, we actually cut ourselves off from who we are. This is what Paul explains in Romans 1:18-21.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Paul is basically saying that God has not kept who He is a secret. Knowing God is not hard. It’s actually the most obvious thing in the world. All you have to do is glorify Him as God and be thankful. This response, because it agrees with the truth, gives you open access to the vast treasures of the knowledge of God. But without that response, your thoughts become futile and your heart is darkened. Futile means “purposeless.” When we fail to sustain the response of thanksgiving for everything in our lives, our thinking is cut off from our purpose in God. When we lose sight of our purpose, we will inevitably make choices that are outside of God’s intentions for our lives, and this can only be destructive because it works against His design for us. A dark heart is a heart that is unable to perceive spiritual reality. It is unmoved by the desires and affections of the Lord, and therefore cannot respond to His invitation to relationship, which is the source of life. As Paul goes on to explain in Romans chapter 1, a dark heart perverts our desires and leads us into all kinds of sin that degrades our identity and relationships. The most perverted sins known to mankind came about through a door left open because of the absence of thankfulness.
The Purifying Nature of Thankfulness
Since thanksgiving keeps us sane and alive by connecting us to the source of our life and purpose, it makes sense that Paul instructs us to give thanks “in everything.” Thanksgiving keeps us sane and alive. But there is a specific dimension of thanksgiving that is particularly powerful in times of difficulty and adversity. We find this principle in Paul’s first letter to Timothy.Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons…commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:1-5).
Food was one of the biggest “disputable matters” that the early Church struggled with, particularly regarding the issue of eating food offered to idols. Jewish and Gentile believers alike feared that this food was defiled by having been dedicated to demonic spirits. False teachers of the time preyed upon this superstition and caused all kinds of bondage and division. Interestingly, in this passage Paul doesn’t debunk the superstition and say that dedicating food to idols is powerless. He simply says that combining thanksgiving with the Word and prayer is powerful enough to deauthorize that dedication and create a stronger one— a dedication to the Lord. He is saying thanksgiving sanctifies whatever it touches.
Sanctification is a significant subject throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament it was primarily associated with the specific rituals God prescribed for setting aside various instruments, vessels, and pieces of furniture for priestly use in the Tabernacle of Moses, and later the Temple of Solomon. After a goldsmith had finished fashioning a bowl for use in the sacrifices, for example, it would be sprinkled with blood from the altar. From that point on, it would never be used for anything but priestly service in the Temple. It was completely set apart for God—sanctified. In the New Testament, believers are sanctified by the Blood of Jesus and set apart for God. This sanctification is even more powerful, because we do not merely become vessels that He can use to accomplish His purposes. The very process by which His life, power and love flow through us is the process that transforms us into His likeness. We become like the One with whom we are set apart.
When Paul says that thanksgiving sanctifies unclean food, he is saying that it sets it apart for God and His purposes. Thanksgiving actually changes the very nature of the food into something holy. This truth extends beyond unclean food. It extends to every situation in your life in which you find other powers at work besides the power of God. It’s vital to remember that not everything that happens in life is His will. He didn’t cause the crisis a nation or individual may be facing. He actually can’t give things that are not good because He doesn’t have them. Someone can only give what he has. God only gives good gifts, because He is good, and has only good gifts to give. So giving thanks in everything does not mean saying that the adversity came from God. But giving thanks in the midst of an adverse situation, a difficulty intended to undermine your faith and destroy you, enables you to take hold of that situation and set it apart to God and His purposes. When you give thanks, the weapon the enemy meant to use to dislodge you from your divine purpose is put into your hands and becomes the very thing that brings you more fully into that purpose. Jesus declared that He sends us out with the same assignment the Father gave to Him—to destroy the works of the devil (see 1 John 3:8). Thanksgiving accomplishes the divine justice of the Kingdom, where the enemy is destroyed by the very thing he intended to use for our destruction. Just knowing that we can participate in destroying the enemy’s purposes should alone move us to give thanks!
Releasing Justice
One of the clearest examples of divine justice in Scripture is found in the Book of Esther: the story of Haman, who was hung on the very gallows he built to destroy Mordecai. Later, this justice was made even more complete when Mordecai assumed Haman’s position in the king’s court. The wonderful thing about this story is that Mordecai didn’t have to bring justice himself. He simply kept his focus on his duty to the heathen king and to his people. This is the nature of warfare in the Kingdom. We don’t battle by focusing on the devil. We keep our focus on the King and His Kingdom, and the devil cannot help but be unseated by God’s ever-increasing government released through our lives, which illustrates another reason why thanksgiving is powerful in times of adversity. Psalm 100:4 says that we “enter into His gates with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving brings us into the manifest presence of God and connects us with what He is doing and saying in the midst of our circumstances. Thanksgiving helps to establish our focus on Him so that our awareness shifts from earthly reality to heavenly reality—which we must do in order to release the strength of Heaven into our circumstances
Keeping My Awareness of God
I have purposed to try to live in such a way that nothing ever gets bigger than my consciousness of God’s presence. Sometimes conflict can be as simple as bad news on TV. If it starts to weigh on my heart and grow bigger than my awareness of God, I consciously turn my affection toward Him to become more aware of His presence. If that doesn’t work, I turn off the TV or leave the room to redirect my focus until my awareness of Him is bigger than that which weighs heavily on my heart. I can’t just know in my head that He’s bigger; I have to have my entire being in a position where I am aware of His presence and expect His world to invade my life and circumstances. If I don’t sustain this expectation, I will expect other forces to be the prime movers in my life and will begin to live defensively instead of offensively.
When I stay close to the presence of God through thanksgiving, I not only become aware of His absolute ability to invade the impossible, I sense His radical love and delight in me! As I give thanks for the good gifts He’s put in my life, I present convincing evidence that He is my Father, He is for me, and His opinion pretty much cancels out all the others. The wonderful thing is that when we simply begin to give thanks, even when it seems difficult to remember one answered prayer, it isn’t too long before our focus on the good in our lives creates an opening for the Lord’s joy. And it’s the joy of the Lord that is our strength. I believe that James was talking about giving thanks when he said to count it all joy in trial, because giving thanks usually includes taking an inventory of God’s gifts in your life. Do the math! If you want to discover the ability of thankfulness to bring you strength in difficulty, you need to keep counting these things until you come to the conclusion—it’s time to rejoice! It becomes really hard to stay depressed about your circumstances when you’re filled with the awareness of the love and goodness of God that surrounds and infuses your life.
There is a level of life we can reach where we practice thanksgiving as a lifestyle—a place where we remember our answered prayers. When difficulty comes along, we have a huge inventory of blessings instantly accessible to bring us into His presence as well as the joy and delight He has over us. That is a reality far greater than any accusation, crisis, or conflict that could come our way. When we learn to live in this realm, nothing can deflect us from our purpose. We even make the enemy help us get it done. From Heaven’s perspective, it is reasonable to give thanks “in everything”!
Bill Johnson
