God Running is a place for anyone who wants to love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.
What follows is another chapter of a book I’m writing called The Jesus Shortcut: How to Become More Like Jesus (in the shortest possible time). (That’s a working title by-the-way. If you have an idea for a better title, I hope you’ll share it with me.) In the weeks before Easter, we posted the introduction and previous chapters. If you’re interested, you can read more here: Loneliness and Isolation, Alypius and the Gladiator (and one of the most powerful forces on earth), Khesed, and The Light of Christ: Where the Power of Christ is Found. For the next few weeks, I’ll post a chapter of this book on the God Running blog until the book is completed. Thank you in advance to my brother in Christ, collaborator-editor Wes Beyer, for your help with this book.
The Power of Gratitude
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Giving thanks, in all circumstances, is what God wants from us. And as is always the case, God wants us to do what He wants us to do because it results in what’s best for us and for the people around us.
Of course, there are other Bible verses admonishing or encouraging us to give thanks.
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 107:1).
“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2).
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).
The list goes on.
As is so often the case, what God prescribed thousands of years ago is being confirmed by science. There have been numerous studies done on gratitude and the consensus is: Practicing gratitude is good for you—really good for you. Below you’ll find three resources to explore the evidence further.
- Christina Caron, Gratitude Really Is Good for You. Here’s What the Science Shows. New York Times, Published June 8, 2023, Updated November 20, 2023
- Giving thanks can make you happier, Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, August 14, 2021
- How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain, Greater Good Magazine, Berkeley.edu, June 6, 2017
Practicing gratitude daily improves relationships, lowers levels of depression, improves sleep, and can even lower blood pressure. As Dr. Emmons states in the New York Times article: There are “objective biologically verifiable outcomes that go beyond self-report measures.”1
Decades of research support these findings.
My Gratitude Journal
Several years ago, I started a gratitude journal. I leave that document up on my screen in my office and I have it easily accessible on my phone. I’m making it as easy as I possibly can for me to add to that document. I would encourage you to do the same. It’s very helpful.
But now I’m going deeper into gratitude. Now, if there’s someone I want to love particularly well, say, my beautiful wife Kathy, or my grandson Andrew, or my sons, or my daughters; I now enter into my gratitude journal a list of all the things they’ve done recently that I’m grateful for. It’s a written prayer to God sharing what I’m thankful for, from Him, and from specific people I want to love well. My goal is to spend a few minutes each morning writing a list of what I’m thankful for. Here’s an example:
“Thank You Father for a good night’s sleep last night.”
“Thank You Father for a good conversation with Gabe yesterday during lunch.”
“Thank You Father for the good conversation with Dominick yesterday.”
“Thank You Father for everything Kathy did yesterday and today: Kathy worked hard cleaning the house, cleaning up some old stains on the carpet, and preparing the house for our next guests. Kathy washed the dishes, including the rubber sink mats. Kathy supported me taking Andrew to pickleball club. Kathy arranged for Gabe to watch Muggles and Kathy scheduled a time for us to visit Nate and Anastasia.”
“Thank You Father for the walk yesterday.”
“Thank You Father for the way You care about human beings without a voice and people on the margins.”
“Thank You Father for connecting me to the people at The Jesus Table.”
I think you get the idea.
Grateful Friends
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s been my experience that gratitude is another attribute of someone who follows Jesus closely. And what we’re trying to do here, in this book, is to identify people who abide in Jesus deeply and follow Him closely; and to engage those people and build friendships with those people. So an identifier of those people is gratitude.
The Bible supports this. God tells us in His word:
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,” Psalm 100:4 says, “and his courts with praise!”
In my own experience and in my observations of others, the deeper we engage in gratitude practices and thanksgiving, the greater our chances of abiding in Christ the way He wants us to. (John 15:4)
And when we practice gratitude, we put ourselves in a state of heart and mind where we’re especially receptive to God.
In my experience, you’re likely to find people with deep gratitude practices in Jesus followers with faces that radiate the love of Christ, and who have the Khesed of Jesus: two attributes we’ve identified previously.
So gratitude is another big part of what fuels us and empowers us to love God well and to love others well.
“Father, please help the dear person reading this right now, and help me to go deep into practicing gratitude and thanksgiving. Lead us in these ways of Yours, Father. Help us to connect with Jesus followers who practice gratitude.
“Help us.
“We’re like little children down here.
“Help us.
“In Jesus’ name we ask. And thank You in advance for what You’re going to do.
“Amen.”
If you feel you’re lacking in power to love like Jesus, connecting with a group of people who practice gratitude is another key to unlocking that power.
Try it and see.
Notes:
- Christina Caron, Gratitude Really Is Good for You. Here’s What the Science Shows. New York Times, Published June 8, 2023, Updated November 20, 2023
- Giving thanks can make you happier, Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, August 14, 2021
- How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain, Greater Good Magazine, Berkeley.edu, June 6, 2017
- Jim Wilder, Michel Hendricks, The Other Half of Church, Moody Publishers, August 4, 2020
The Love Like Jesus Book
Available on Google Play Books and on Amazon!
Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)
Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:
- Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
- How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
- The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
- How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
- How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
- How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
- How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
- How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
- How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.
With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.
A life of loving like Jesus. (Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon and Google Play Books.)
We also recently released the audiobook version, beautifully narrated by Jonathan St. John. It’s available on the following platforms:
It’s also available on Amazon, Hoopla, Audiobooksnow, Chirp, Libro, Overdrive, and virtually everywhere audiobooks are offered.
