The topic today is gratefulness. I know this is hackneyed at this time of year for those in the United States, but I come to you to tell you, gratefulness is a key to unlock so many things have happened. Let me put it to you in this perspective. Here are some points about gratefulness:
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Gratefulness protects your humility
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Gratefulness protects you from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and its limited mindset, which forces structures of worldly capacities. Gratefulness begins to release you from its tendrils
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Gratefulness is a recognition of your needs being met
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Gratefulness protects you from mammon.
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Gratefulness forces the mindset of self and self-manufacturing of one's life and provision and it off loads that to the one who is capable—The Father
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Gratefulness is an antidote for stress especially when gratefulness involves one's humility.
Having a proper view
We often see two sides of the same coin: Some see themselves as unworthy while some see themselves as too capable. A pendulum swing needs to land in the middle where you are both cognizant of your identity in Christ as an image bearer of Yahweh, but you are also cognitive that He is God and He alone.
My wife had a poster in an office where she worked that described two principles of human enlightenment:
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There is a God
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You are not Him
When we understand those two principles, we reflect Him with a marked perfection because gratefulness is a part of our humility. I am not speaking of humility as viewing oneself as a worm, lying on the ground. I view I am speaking of humility as the accurate view of one’s self. Humanity viewing themselves accurately elicits appropriate humility considering the wondrous glory of God, His might, and His power offered through love. This is seen in the redemption story which Jesus both heralded and performed.
Gratefulness as related to the Courts of Heaven is a key component of the ability to access the realms of Heaven for when you feel unworthy, you do not go to the realms of Heaven and when you feel too full of self and self-idolatry, you will not go either. The medium ground is a narrow way as you are both Kings and priests in the kingdom of Yahweh. Your knowledge of true humility increases your access to the realms of Heaven. This is a thing to be pondered.
Gratefulness is also linked to rest
Gratefulness is also linked to rest. As you are grateful, then rest can translate to the soul. Gratefulness is like a pool of refreshing. Command your spirit to spend time in the pool of refreshing called gratefulness. Your spirit is well able to translate this gratefulness and its rest to your soul. The problem comes when your soul is in front leading your life and you are trying to engage Heaven from the realm the soul knows—the natural earth bound, limited.
But the spirit realm is full of gratefulness to others for the input of others into one's life and, of course the accurate view of the love of the creator to create for you the ability to live spirit first. So, your soul gains its rest from your spirit. All humanity needs practice in this. No one is doing it perfectly yet.
Heaven has revealed this as a key to these times and certainly to these times of uncertainty. An exercise is to engage where your soul is at rest, your body is at rest, and your spirit is in the realms of Heaven, engaging with the mind gratefulness from this supernatural spiritual ground. From here you can dialogue with many in the realms of Heaven to hear that which your spirit will agree with. To be grateful for this kind of gratefulness is not solace. Therefore, it is not keyed on emotion. It is keyed on fact and truth. It is keyed on the foundation of the perfection of the Father, His ways, and His time timing. Your spirit connected to gratefulness in heavenly realms translates to the soul the direction it should take. If it is emotion, the soul is easily influenced and led astray by the natural senses. Then realm of the natural is a success after the unseen realm. So, keep focusing on engaging into the unseen realm from the spirit through Jesus, the Christ.
Engaging the gratefulness of His mind in the realms of Heaven gives you a truer sense of the gratefulness with which you praise God. The transaction of your spirit man, praising God from spiritual realms is unique and delightful. This opportunity comes to those who are maturing in Christ Jesus.
A spiritual discipline is involved here. It is one that needs to be practiced because at the beginning you will find that you're not very good at it, but the more you engage gratefulness from the spiritual realm, the more at rest your soul will be. Much of this is like breaking the mold of the mind of your soul—the mind of your flesh into new thought patterns allowing your thought patterns to come from the truths that are in the spirit realm.
The foundational principle of worshiping God in spirit and truth must be done from the spirit realm.
It must be done spirit first. It must be done from the spirits’ access to the spiritual realm, translated or transferred down to the soul. Our understanding of this is linear but the more time we spend in the heavenly realms the less linear our thinking becomes, and the more possibility is translated from the spirit to our soul.
Our soul is designed to delight in this as it receives the creativeness of the realms of Heaven and our spirit is teaching our soul its true ability. It is teaching our whole being by soul and spirit new truths from which to live life.
Unlocking Rest
Gratefulness is key to unlocking rest, the experience of the nearness of His presence, and even creativity within the soul.
Try it sometime.
If you are feeling closed off or shut down in creativity, the pathway of gratefulness from the heavenly realm—the spiritual realm, the Kingdom realm begins to unlock you. It unlocks the souls’ stress. The reason I say to practice is because practice involves a choice and intent.
Unlocking Joy
Another thing that gratefulness will unlock is the joy of Heaven to be translated to the soul. It is like eating from the Tree of Life. Focus your spirit eyes on the goodness, abundance, and pleasure of your eternal destiny in Jesus. Do you not take on the burdens of life that have not been given to you by the Father, but have been elicited within your soul by the deceptions of the adversary. Release them to the Lord and engage in the delight of your spirits’ access to heavenly realms. From this vantage point your gratefulness becomes shiny. It becomes a treasure.
One thing that will stop you enjoying this access that Jesus opened is allowing the soul to think that it is the lead to correct, fix, and bring into perfection the earth realm. This is completely wrong as it will only come through the spirit, the spirit of the believers, the spirit of mankind in Jesus, the spirit which contains the mind of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling in humanity. This spirit translates these things. If your soul is trying to be grateful it can only get so far because it feels the burdens of life, but your spirit feels the joy of Heaven and knows the Tree of Life. Only from Heaven down will true gratefulness translate back to your soul. Creativity, rest, and joy arise again.
When you are comparing yourself with others, instead of yourself with yourself, you set yourself up for getting stuck. It is only the Father who knows all things of every heart so, therefore your comparison of your circumstance with another person's circumstances will never hold true because you know not all things. The spirit does not need this comparison. Therefore, as you are engaged in spiritual realms you can receive the things that make the soul at rest, gain creativity, and contain joy. Where your soul is in front of your spirit, these things are hampered.
The conclusion that the soul draws is often clouded by untruth and the soul feels burdened without the spiritual access to be the spirit being you are as one who holds the breadth of Yahweh. Your joy comes from recognition of how close spiritual things are to you. As you have been awakened in Jesus and are acknowledging his kingship, Lordship, victory, angel armies, and counsel as from one who knows all things. This is the pleasure of Heaven in the presence of the Father. This is the pleasure of Heaven and is made available to the saints upon the earth.
This is an area of new awakening and reawakening of the spirit man.
Your spirit hungers, to be grateful, but not as led by the soul. Rather as experienced in Heaven among the atmosphere of true gratefulness in the Heavenlies, in the unseen spiritual realm of Heaven. Gratefulness is a pervasive aroma, and it contains rest as well as joy acknowledging that all things come from the Father who is a good giver and has provided well for all that is needed.
The soul demands its contemplations, and this is mostly true because the soul has been given reign over the flesh and the spirit. But when it is in its proper place and the seamless beauty of spirit, soul, and body are at work, the spirit translating to the soul the winds, and breath, and refreshing of Heaven, the soul becomes at rest and the being of that person is made well or made whole and finds wholeness and oneness.
It is rather a mystery that I am explaining to you, but the reason we use the word mystery is because it is something that must be sought out. It must be dug out. It must be uncovered. It must be mined. It must be found, and it's not found in the 3-D plane, the spirit plane being the greater dimension. It is found in that plane. It is the reawakening to what Jesus opened as the last Adam so that the sons of God can become true sons and daughters of the Most High reflecting His peace, His glory, and His perfection.
This is a good thing to remember as some families are meeting and some families aren't meeting and some have forgotten what the cultural holiday is about in lieu of the burdens of the day, but the key to that is a spiritual ascension and engagement with Heaven.
I do not want to overburden you. Rather, I want to leave you with hope. I want to leave this with you a reminder to access this joy and leave you with this challenge that the peace they seek for and the true definition of gratefulness is a Heaven down concept. This is kind of like re-introducing spirituality back to a cultural holiday that has become completely culturally bound.
Here is what Jesus did to let His being “catch up” as he lived in the flesh with a soul from His spirit, He sought out solitude for catch-up time. He allowed himself to be ministered to by the love of the Father.
In our day, the dispute is over our ability to find solitude from distraction and to be in the presence of God. It is a territory that is disputed or contested for by darkness. Yet the Father does not have anxiety that His sons and daughters will not come to Him for refreshing because he is doing a work in His children and they will learn rest.
Sometimes the 3-D world in which we live will be in our face. It will be so in our face that we will need to rise early or go to bed late having had carved out a short time for solitude in His presence.
Take time to embrace His presence.
