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grateful (6)

Receiving God’s Deliverance

Introduction
  1. Being grateful is recognizing the good.
  2. Now we know what is truly good. The word of God teaches us about it. We also know that it is mostly spiritual, and therefore invisible. It is not just about the good things that we actually see or experience. It’s about the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ.
  3. But why do we still struggle with being grateful?
  4. Deep within our souls are issues and concerns that hinder us from being truly grateful. Often, we are unaware of them.
  5. We need to receive deliverance from God concerning these deep soul issues. He wants to set us free from them so that we can also be free to be truly grateful.
  6. Today, we want to talk about…
THREE SOUL ISSUES THAT GOD WANTS TO DELIVER US FROM (IN ORDER TO BE TRULY GRATEFUL)
 
  • God wants to deliver us from the Endless Cycle of Spiritual Defeat.

1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases…

It’s hard to be grateful when we are always being reminded of our spiritual failures. When we are always falling into sin, and whatever we do seems to be ineffective in stopping this constant cycle, we end up feeling defeated and depressed. We are demotivated to worship God or to do anything related to God, much less to be grateful.
 
God wants to deliver us from this endless cycle of spiritual defeat. There is grace available for our forgiveness and healing if we are willing to acknowledge the root causes of our spiritual defeat. God’s desire is not a temporary fix but the real healing of our souls.
 
Are you struggling with this problem? This is one of the reasons why you are not motivated to give thanks to God. Often the problem is that we settle only with mere worldly sorrow. God wants to deliver us from this endless cycle of spiritual defeat. He wants us to experience real godly sorrow. But we need to cooperate with Him. It would take a process but His grace will help us. We need to persevere to receive our spiritual freedom in Christ!
 
  • God wants to deliver us from the Bottomless Pit of Love Withdrawals.

1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion…

The absence of love in our lives can easily deplete us, causing us to feel negative and ungrateful about life itself. We see all the negatives in other people or in ourselves. In reality, we are simply suffering from love hunger. We withdraw from others or use them to satisfy our selfish desires. We fail to give and receive love, and this deprives our souls of our greatest need, which is love. It becomes a bottomless pit for our souls.
 
Only God can deliver us from this bottomless pit. Only His love can fill our hearts and set us free to receive and give love to others. It’s hard to give thanks when your heart is hungry for love. Let God fill your heart with His love. Again, it would be a process, and we need to cooperate with Him. But by His grace, God will deliver us from a loveless life and fill our souls with love and compassion again.
 
  • God wants to deliver us from the Lonely Prison of Unsatisfied Desires.

1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

When you have unsatisfied desires and unfulfilled dreams, your soul will feel downcast. You will not be motivated to give thanks to God in all circumstances. Instead, you will be bitter and angry, because life seems to be unfair. Sometimes you might even blame God for your unhappiness. Because of this dissatisfaction, your soul will not be able to give thanks. You will feel like you are in a lonely prison, all by yourself.
 
Only God can deliver us from this. He does this by first purifying our desires. Often our problem is disordered desires and attachments. The Bible calls this idolatry. We desire other things instead of God. So, we always end up with dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Our souls will remain imprisoned by these false desires unless God delivers us from within.
 
This purification can be painful, but it is what we truly need to be truly grateful. Until we learn how to desire God first and foremost, and find our true contentment in Him alone, we will forever be dissatisfied. God will remove our false attachments so that we can love and worship God alone. Only then can we be truly satisfied.
 
Turning Point: “God’s deliverance enables us to give thanks again.”
 

GROUP DISCUSSION (30 minutes)

  1. Which of the three soul issues can you identify with? In what ways does it affect your ability to give thanks to God in all circumstances?
  2. How do you see God delivering you from this soul issue? What do you think needs to happen in your soul to be delivered from this?
  3. How would you pray to God right now so He can start delivering you?

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