Gratitude is also a type of worship. Being grateful and worshiping the Lord are natural responses of a heart that lives in His love. They are common actions of someone who loves the Father and His Kingdom.
Love that drives
“It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night.”
Psalm 92:1-2
When we understand the size and beauty of God’s love and grace, it is natural for our hearts to overflow with love. This is praising God, expressing in words and actions how wonderful He is in every detail.
We are loved unconditionally and that alone should be a reason to be grateful for the rest of our lives. But many times we stagnate by knowing that we are loved unconditionally. However, I want to tell you that this love does not exist to stop us. We need to evolve into thinking that if God loves us unconditionally, we need to move in that love.
Really, this love is not a bargaining chip, it does not exist based on what we do or fail to do. His main goal is for you to move knowing that you have support. The intention is for you to be the best version of yourself, recognizing that even if you fail or feel weak along the way, He continues to love and care for you, sustaining and molding you.
Love that encourages
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Colossians 3:17
We cannot use what comes from God unconditionally to refrain from acting. The Father’s love for us needs to encourage us, not anchor us.
You don’t have to act to get that love, but you do have to act because you already have that love. Act because you have the assurance of a Father who cares and guides you, of a God who is by your side in any circumstance, receiving you as you are and working with you so that you develop more and more a character that is accepted and approved by Him.
Work so that you are the best version of yourself, to give the Lord the best that exists in your essence. When we act out of this love and grace, we are also adoring Him for Who He is and for such mercy, for walking beside us pulling us close even without deserving it.
Love that generates response
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”
John 15:9-10
Jesus assures us that He already loved us, but he asks us to remain in His love. He asks that, in response to the fact that He already loves us, we can obey His commandments.
The Word describes, in Philippians 2, that Jesus being found in human form, humbled himself and was obedient to the Father even to the death of the cross. That same text invites us to have an attitude like His. As much as there is nothing we can do to be worthy of Perfect love, if that love is real in us and has transformed us, if we remain in it, it will produce attitudes and lead us to a character that is ever closer to that of Christ. To a life of devotion and obedience.
Believe, receive, adore, and live by that love. Abide in Him. He lives in you and is in every detail of your days. Rest in that grace and use it to live a life of worship to God.
