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Living in Thanksgiving
15 Plays1 year ago
Living in Thanksgiving, in gratitude changes our lives. It lowers anxiety and gives us hope. In Deuteronomy 26 and 27, Moses is telling the Israelites what to do when they enter the land of milk and honey. From this there are 7 tips to live in Thanksgiving. First of all, we need to acknowledge God. When we do that we are focusing on the good. Secondly, We need to take in that God sees us. He saw the Israelites when they were suffering. He rescued them, just like He rescued us. We just need to cry out to Him. So thankful that we can live, focusing on the good every day.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hope, Scripture, and Parenting
00:00:00
Filling You Up With Hope
Hi, it's Abby from Filling You Up with Hope. I'm so thankful that you're here. We go through God's Word and we find so much hope. We started in Genesis, now we're in Deuteronomy, and we go through a couple verses, or more than that. And we talk about mental health and parenting and all sorts of stuff.
Beyond Thanksgiving: Cultivating Gratitude
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Filling You Up With Hope
And today we're talking about living and Thanksgiving.
00:00:30
Filling You Up With Hope
so Thanksgiving is so soon. um And it's just such a fun time, right, where we spend with friends and family and eat yummy food. But the idea of it is a way of living, right? The Hebrew word um for thankful is about recognizing the good, which It's a very hard thing to do when we're feeling down and when we're feeling depressed because it's natural that our brain recognizes just the bad things that are happening and we need to train it to live this way. And so these seven things that we're going to go through, I think you're going to help with that because in our society, you know, we do things like there's like the 30 days of gratitude where every day in Thanksgiving people write,
00:01:29
Filling You Up With Hope
things that they're thankful for. And I remember I did like a gratitude journal in high school and I wrote every day things, you know, three things that I was thankful for, which is great. Like it helps our mental health to be thankful, to live in that gratitude.
Seven Practices for Living with Gratitude
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Filling You Up With Hope
Um, it's hard to feel anxious and when, when we're, when we're focusing on the good and when when we're living with gratitude, but this is deeper than that. This is a way of living that the first thing, number one, these are seven things about living in Thanksgiving. The first thing is acknowledging God, acknowledging the Lord, our savior. This is from Deuteronomy one and two and skipping to four. And this is all in chapter 26.
00:02:30
Filling You Up With Hope
When you've entered the land, the Lord your God is living you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the first fruits of all the produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord God will choose as a dwelling for his name. The priest shall take the basket from your hands, set it down in front of the altar for alter of the Lord your God. so that this is So we've been going through Deuteronomy for a while, right? And this is Moses preparing the Israelites. This is what you're doing when you enter the land. These are the first things you're going to do when you enter into the land. You're going to take the first fruits from this beautiful land, the first fruits, and you are going to give it to God.
00:03:31
Filling You Up With Hope
And that symbolizes that he is first. It acknowledges God first. So in our lives, like living thankful, recognizing the good, living this way, the first thing is to acknowledge God. Acknowledge God.
00:03:57
Filling You Up With Hope
Because no matter what he made you, he made you put your breath and your lungs and we praise him. So that's the first thing. Praise you God. The second thing is take in that he sees you.
Celebrating God's Gifts and Generosity
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Filling You Up With Hope
This is Deuteronomy 26, seven. God saw our misery. The God of our ancestors and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So,
00:04:30
Filling You Up With Hope
How grateful does that make you feel that the God who, the mighty Lord who created everything sees you? That's gonna help us live in gratitude when we really take in, because I think at our lowest moments, a lot of times we don't feel seen. We don't feel heard, but Moses is reminding the Israelites that when you were enslaved in Egypt,
00:04:59
Filling You Up With Hope
like god sigh God saw you. He saw your misery. He saw the pain that you were going through. So taking taking that in, no matter what you're going through, that you that you are seen by Him.
00:05:22
Filling You Up With Hope
You're seen by Him. And um and ah in addition to that, um
00:05:31
Filling You Up With Hope
we can cry out to him, right? The Israelites cried out to him. um So when we're in those hard times, crying out to to our God, like what a gift that we have that we can do that, that the Israelites did that and that thing that God heard them. So
00:06:01
Filling You Up With Hope
That makes me feel thankful. I hope that makes you feel thankful too. um The third thing is acknowledge all God has done for you, right? That's gonna make us feel thankful. That's Deuteronomy 26, eight through nine. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt. And when I, I'm gonna keep going on, but when I think of that, we've all been in Egypt, like we've all been enslaved and God plucked us out of captivity and now we're free in Jesus, right? When we've accepted him as our savior.
00:06:41
Filling You Up With Hope
So that's going to create so much gratitude, like thinking about what God has done for us that he died for us. Um, so, but this is Deuteronomy 26, eight through nine.
00:06:59
Filling You Up With Hope
So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to the place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So we can go through in our life and we could say, the Lord did blah, blah, blah. You know, every day.
00:07:26
Filling You Up With Hope
I like to write down every day answers to prayers, right? Because it's all around us, like this home that we live in, you know, that, you know, that we have this home. And, you know, I just, I just feel so grateful. And I know that it's God. I know that it wasn't us who did anything. I know that it was him. And so, but more than that, more than home and material things, like acknowledging that Jesus died for us, um
00:07:59
Filling You Up With Hope
that he brought us out of captivity and gave us freedom with his death. So we we really, and that's gonna that's gonna make our hearts have thanksgiving in them every day. um I love this one. This is, well, I love all all of these, but This is Deuteronomy 26, 11. Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord God has given to you and your household. This is celebrate all the things that God has done. Like me maybe you know some of us have ideas, um maybe not ideas, but sometimes we don't live in joy.
00:08:52
Filling You Up With Hope
and um And I feel like God wants us to live in joy. And I feel like no matter what we can, because no matter what, he died for us. And he wants us to celebrate. So on this Thanksgiving and every day, like celebrating, like we're supposed to be happy sometimes, right? There's a time for all different emotions, right?
00:09:22
Filling You Up With Hope
But what a joy that we can we can celebrate and acknowledge the things God has done. Thank you, God. Thank you so much. So number five, living in Thanksgiving, right? What's something that helps with that is giving.
00:09:50
Filling You Up With Hope
This is Deuteronomy 26, 13. Then say to the Lord your God, I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all you command. I have not turned aside from your command.
00:10:09
Filling You Up With Hope
nor i forgotten any of that
00:10:15
Filling You Up With Hope
We, they're supposed to give to these people, the fatherless and the widow, right?
00:10:29
Filling You Up With Hope
we're We're supposed to do that. And that is gonna make us thankful. Like what a gift that we can help others. And it does something to our hearts when we do that. So that is a big thing about living this way, is giving.
The Power of Scripture in Gratitude
00:10:47
Filling You Up With Hope
Deuteronomy 27.3 is the next word. It's reading God's word and remembering it. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over and entered the land your God has given you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors promised you. Write them down.
00:11:14
Filling You Up With Hope
Right? Like do anything you can to remember them because reading God's word, reading it, that makes us feel thankful. It does something to our hearts. It does something to our mind and our being, like really reading it and taking in. And how are how are we going to obey Him and listen to Him if we're not taking, if you're not taking it in deeply, like there's that verse earlier on in Deuteronomy, I think 11, like think about these, these regulations, think about them when you're laying down, when you're sitting up, like that verse, like we're supposed to have God's word in our heart. And that's going to help us live in Thanksgiving.
Listening to God for True Gratitude
00:12:11
Filling You Up With Hope
So that leads me to the last one, number seven, which is listen to God first. It's so easy to listen to also to all sorts of other things, you know, the world around us, but we need to, if we want true happiness, right, the true true gratitude,
00:12:39
Filling You Up With Hope
We have to listen to God first. This is Deuteronomy 27.10, obey the Lord your God and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today.
00:12:51
Filling You Up With Hope
Like that's gonna make us thankful, listening, listening to him. um So many times we don't wait and listen to where's he guiding me? um What is he calling me to do?
00:13:08
Filling You Up With Hope
What does he want me to do in this situation? A lot of times we just follow our flesh and we have a gift, right? Um, that we can follow him and that's gonna, uh, that, like how, how thankful does that make you? That you have the best guide of all God.
00:13:37
Filling You Up With Hope
who if we take the time to listen to him, like he will guide you and he will show you.
Reflecting on Gratitude: Psalm 56 and Upcoming Themes
00:13:43
Filling You Up With Hope
So ah i was reading ah saw some of I was reading Psalm 56 today, and it just I feel like it ties to all of this. Psalm 56, 12 through 13. I am under the vows to you, my God. I will present my thank offerings to you, for you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling that I may walk before God in the light of life. Living with gratitude means knowing that He delivered us from death. That creates a thankful, thankful heart no matter no matter what. So I pray that your thanksgiving
00:14:36
Filling You Up With Hope
is filled with deep gratitude, and it carries on every day, not just on Thanksgiving. And you know the holidays are hard for a lot of us. they're really you know They're a really hard time. But no matter what God sees you, like like what we talked about, um you are seen. And you are loved. and you can talk to him and read his word and and feel that gratitude and that love no matter what. So I'm so thankful and so starting next week we are gonna, I'm gonna do, um every week is gonna be correlated to the week of Advent and the first week of Advent is hope.
00:15:31
Filling You Up With Hope
And I'm so excited about that and about um this season and just pray that we're all so rooted in God and that we all just grow closer and closer to Him during the holidays and and every time and that we're focused on Him and not all the distractions that are around us.
Conclusion and Gratitude for the Audience
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Filling You Up With Hope
So I'm just thankful for you and I'll see you next week. Bye.