DAILY HOPE DEVOTIONALS: DECEMBER 2 THOSE WHO APPRECIATE GET MORE (2) SCRIPTURE: ECCLESIASTES 9: 4 – 5
In yesterday’s devotional, one of the definitions of appreciation said that it is “recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people or things.” By explanation, it is said that people who easily recognize the quality or quantity, value and significance of what is done for them or given to them are always full of appreciation. Today’s devotional is building on this definition to drive home a point why Christians should show appreciation to God more greatly in the month of December every year. In other to see why God must be appreciated more on December of the year than any other month, we should be able to assess the qualities, values, significances and the worthiness of things God did for us from January to December of the years.
Instead of capitalizing on what we could not get, the projects we could not finish and the amount of money ought to have in our bank account to celebrate Christmas and refusing to appreciate God; we should do ourselves much favour by noting the quality of health we enjoined, the less money spent on treatments and the nature of sickness that came upon us but got healed after while other ended up in the mortuary with less kind of sickness. Our findings should spur us into appreciating God for His mercy, kindness, favours as well as deliverances from enemies’ traps and arrows. There is reason to appreciate God even for being alive in health. The Bible has said that “For to him that is joined with the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion” (Eccl. 9: 4-5). This could be explained as “the dead man who is wealthy and rich is of less value; but the poor person who is alive is better off.”
The beloved in Christ, why don’t you cast your mind back and take stocks of those good things God allowed you enjoyed since January till this month and weigh their values, qualities and worthiness, then convert them to thanking and appreciating God in this month. You could have been among the dead, you could have been among those maliciously jailed out of sight. You might have been among the living but a vegetable kind of life. There is nothing like living in health and with strength moving about one’s businesses. The Bible says that is only those who are alive that have hope. As long as you are alive in health you will have what you are hoping on in Jesus name.
PRAYER:
Ask the LORD to bring into your consciousness all that God has done for you from January to December and use them to appreciate God today. Pray into your heart, Spirit of appreciation in Jesus name.
bishopubaudenyi@hopealivechurch.