The Gift of Emotions Part Three
Download MP3Welcome to a place of peace, hope, and divine encouragement. This is Joy in Every Step with your host, beloved preacher, retired teacher, and faithful walking through the valleys or dancing on the mountaintops, Sarita's voice will guide you back to his promises step by step. So open your heart, settle your spirit, and take the next step in faith with joy in every step.
Sarita Bernadette:Hi, I'm Sarita Bernadette, and welcome back to another episode of Joy in Every Step. I am glad you're here. Psalm nine and one reads, I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all of your wonderful deeds. Psalm 100 seven:one Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Sarita Bernadette:Psalm 3zero 12 Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever. Gratitude is a gift from God. Last week we talked about compassion and when we took a deeper look we could see that there's a definite connection between these two emotions. They kind of go hand in hand. The two emotions I'm talking about are gratitude and compassion.
Sarita Bernadette:Gratitude and compassion. So today we're going to talk more about gratitude. If you've been a believer for any length of time you've probably heard that being grateful is something we should practice. Anybody out there grateful today? I know I am.
Sarita Bernadette:I recently thought about something that I had prayed for for quite a bit of time and I realized that God came through for me and that I really had not taken the time to thank him for what he had done. I mean explicitly thank him. Now hold on before you judge, beloved. There are times that we pray and we ask God for something and then, you know, he comes through and we just move on with our lives. You know, we thank him in the moment, but it's a brief moment.
Sarita Bernadette:And then we go on from there. Our lives are so busy we just kind of move on with the next thing. Well, as I reflected and actually paused, I knew I needed to go back and thank the Lord for what he had done. I had to take a little more time with it. And I'll just bet you can think of something that you need to thank God for right now.
Sarita Bernadette:There's a story in the Bible about a leper from Samaria. The Samaritan leper. You may have heard this story before. Out of 10 lepers healed by Jesus, only one, a Samaritan, returned to give thanks with a loud voice leading Jesus to ask where the others were. Here's the accounting from Luke 17 verses 11 through 19.
Sarita Bernadette:It reads: Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, 10 men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out with a loud voice, Jesus, Master, have pity on us! When he saw them he said, Go show yourselves to the priests. And as they went they were cleansed.
Sarita Bernadette:One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him, and he was a Samaritan. Verse 17: Jesus asked, 'Were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?' Then he said to him, Rise and go.
Sarita Bernadette:Your faith has made you well. These men must have heard the stories. They had probably heard about Jesus going from town to town healing the sick. So they sought him out they laid in wait for this man they'd heard about he tells them to go show yourselves to the priest and and as they were on their way to the priest they realized they were healed. However, only one of them turned back to give thanks.
Sarita Bernadette:So Jesus asks, Were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other nine? He then tells the Samaritan, Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well. Beloved, this makes it clear to me that the act of returning to give thanks, the act of showing gratitude, brought about a spiritual wholeness as well as the physical healing.
Sarita Bernadette:Jesus said, Your faith has made you well or your faith has made you whole. You see, the action the leper took, returning to praise God, served as evidence of his faith. He made the decision to turn around and go back. That act of gratitude is why we're talking about him today. His action is recorded and it distinguishes him from the other nine lepers.
Sarita Bernadette:Most importantly, it earned him the praise of the Savior. Gratitude is an emotion that God has given us, and it is much more. Listen, the leper who came back to tell Jesus thank you was responding to something wonderful, And we don't know how he lived his life after that. All we know is that in this moment he was healed, and in this moment he experienced gratitude as an emotion. We know that experiencing gratitude triggers transmitters associated with feelings of happiness and contentment, namely the release of dopamine and serotonin.
Sarita Bernadette:We also know that feelings feelings are temporary and the Bible warns us in Jeremiah seventeen:nine, The heart is devious above all else it is perverse who can understand it? This verse lets us know that human emotions, desires, and thoughts can be misleading and untrustworthy. As believers, we are encouraged to rely on the wisdom of God rather than our own understanding, namely our feelings. We are urged to live a life that is full of gratitude. Focusing on the blessings in our lives creates a grateful disposition.
Sarita Bernadette:A grateful disposition is different from generalized gratitude. Gratitude is an emotion or a state of gratitude, if you will, tends to be momentary or temporary. It also tends to be situational or tied to one's circumstances. You feel it as an appreciation for something good that has happened. Beloved, gratitude felt as only an emotion can fluctuate from day to day, and we don't want to live like that.
Sarita Bernadette:Dispensational gratitude is a consistent and steady and frequent inclination to experience grateful feelings across a whole variety of situations. People with high dispensational gratitude are those folks who are looking for the good things happening around them, and they respond with steady feelings of thankfulness. They're always in a state of gratitude. These are the people for whom gratitude has become a personality trait. They're always searching for and finding the positive moments in life.
Sarita Bernadette:No matter where they are and no matter what's going on, they're going to have something to be thankful for. Psalm 30 four:one reads, I will bless the Lord at all times his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Dispensational gratitude. You see the difference here, beloved? Just look a bit closer.
Sarita Bernadette:We're going to look a bit closer. Paul the Apostle set an example of what a dispensation of gratitude looks like. Paul's whole life demonstrated an active, conscious choice to be grateful rather than a passive feeling related to his situation. Paul didn't allow where he was or what the early church was going through to affect his ability to express his thanks to God. He wrote much of the New Testament, and it is consistently filled with gratitude to God.
Sarita Bernadette:Here are a couple of those passages. First Thessalonians five and eighteen: Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Ephesians five twenty Giving thanks to God the Father at all times for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wrote four of the New Testament books or epistles as they are known from prison. The Bible tells us he was likely under house arrest as he penned Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.
Sarita Bernadette:These four long letters served to advise the early churches there, and they continue to inspire and encourage believers today. He said in Philippians four twelve-thirteen, I know what it is to have little and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and even being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, it is well with my soul.
Sarita Bernadette:Friends, gratitude as an attitude is associated with contentment, vibrancy, happiness, self esteem, optimism, hope, and yes, compassion. The Yale Center for Gratitude practice has noted that an attitude of gratitude may also play a vital role in successful aging and longevity. Be thankful, beloved. We can cultivate dispensational gratitude through intentional actions like prayer and expressing our thanks to others with our words or gestures like writing thank you notes. Yes, I said writing thank you notes.
Sarita Bernadette:We can also make a conscious effort to recognize blessings in all of our circumstances and to speak about them. Paul wrote in Colossians three fifteen, And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Recognizing that we always have something to be thankful for shifts our perspective and makes us aware of how good God is. Gratitude is a precious gift from God and it's ours to claim as his beloved children. You've been listening to Joy in Every Step.
Sarita Bernadette:I'm Sarita Bernadette, and I'm grateful you chose to spend some time here with me. You can find Joy in Every Step wherever you listen to your podcasts and give us a follow there. Do check out the website at joyineverystep.org.
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