Thanksgiving as Spiritual Weapon

Thanksgiving as Spiritual Weapon: Three things are absolute essentials in our relationship with God. These are thanksgiving, praise and worship. While one may flow into the other, thus blurring their differences, it is important for us to know that they are not the same.

In thanksgiving, we show appreciation or gratitude for what the Father has done for others and us; praise relates to magnifying His greatness, magnificence, His wonders and works in nature and His sovereignty.

Worship refers to adoration of His person, His glory/beauty and His holiness.  Psalm 96:9 exhorts us to “worship the LORD in the beauty of His holiness.” In this edition, we focus on thanksgiving as a weapon of spiritual warfare.

No matter the level of our spiritual growth, we must have realised at one point or the other that the devil does not want us to please the Father. In Psalm 50:23, God says, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.”

The World English Bible renders the same verse thus, “Whoso offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies Me; and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.”

It is easy for us to thank God for His abundance and great provisions. Of course, I am referring to believers in Christ because there are humans who do not believe in the existence of God. These folks take everything He does for them for granted, with some attributing this to luck or their personal achievements.

Giving God a sacrifice of thanksgiving is the major challenge to us. This is where satan enters with his arrows, causing us to see God as an enemy. Hence, we attribute our afflictions, pains and sufferings to the Father’s malevolence.

We ask questions like, “Why me?” “How can a loving God allow me to go through such pains?” “What have I done to deserve such deprivations or pains?”

When we discern where these thoughts are coming from and counter them with the word of God, they simply vanish. This is why thanksgiving is such an important tool for countering satanic arrows. The enemy wants us to murmur and complain against God instead of giving Him thanks in all situations (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

When we murmur and complain, we assume the position of a judge over God. We are saying in effect, “You are a bad Father. Even the devil would not do this to me, so, You are worse than the devil.” That is exactly what satan said to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

“God is wicked. He is a liar. He does not want you to achieve your full potentials.” The inversion of reality is a major tool in the devil’s arsenal. He called God a liar, but he is the father of lies (John 8:44). If satan tells you that God is wicked for allowing bad stuff to happen to you, be reminded that he (satan) is called the “Wicked one” (1 John5;18).

From my personal experience, nothing hits the enemy as hard as when a believer gives God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. It is a knockout punch! One night, I flew from my bed and hit the floor after I was terrorised by demons. I hit my leg on a steel table in the room and twisted my ankle.

The nails of the two big toes had cuts, one of them to the flesh, while I also had an open wound in the ankle. I was in terrible pains as my left feet began to swell up. Then, I did something that was unnatural. I began to thank God, graduated to praise and then to worship.

As the worship progressed, heaven came down to my room. I was praising, worshipping and crying at the same time because the pain was intense. As I encountered God, the flesh in me was worried about the things I planned to do in the coming days, especially a public lecture scheduled for Tuesday.

To the glory of God, I did all those things without having to see a doctor or take any medication. The Father healed me completely.

 The idea that God leaves us alone to fight our own battles is unscriptural. The Lord said Mathew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Satan’s attacks are intended to make us question the veracity of the God’s word.

He wants us to doubt God’s sincerity and to accept his (satan’s) lies instead. I read somewhere about a woman who was in a boat on a lake, reading her Bible. Then a storm arose in the lake and she hit her head on the side of the boat, causing an injury on her head.

She immediately exclaimed, “Lord, how could you allow this to happen to me? I was even reading Psalm 91! The Holy Spirit quietly responded to her with a question, “You didn’t die, did you?” She missed an opportunity to show God how much He meant to her.

 Someone once observed that it is not enough for us to thank God for what we have. We also need to thank Him for what He has kept away from us. There are people today battling with terminal diseases. Should we not thank the Father for keeping such things away from us?

There are people whose children are their source of woes. Do we have well-behaved children? Should this not be something to thank God for everyday? Many marriages have collapsed as the enemy’s attack on the family intensifies. Should we not show gratitude to God for persevering ours?

No man on earth has a reason to murmur and complain against God. Anyone who does so is simply a mouthpiece of satan. Revelation 4:11 states, “Thou art worthy, O LORD, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

If your life is not giving God pleasure, you are obviously working for the enemy. Learn to appreciate everything the Father has done for you, as well as the bad stuff He has kept away from you. When your life brings God joy, you will attract more favours from heaven.