A Thankful Heart

Welcome to today's encouragement from the Our Daily Bread devotional. I'm Bill Crowder, and I wrote today's reading titled, A Thankful Heart. Seneca, the great philosopher of ancient Rome, was once accused by the Empress Messalina of adultery.

After the Senate sentenced Seneca to death, the Emperor Claudius instead exiled him to Corsica, perhaps because he suspected the charge was false. This reprieve may have shaped Seneca's view of thankfulness when he wrote, A contemporary of Seneca's, the apostle Paul, may have agreed. In Romans 1.21, he wrote that one of the triggers for the downward collapse of humankind was that they refused to give thanks to God. Writing to the church at Colossae, three times Paul challenged his fellow believers in Christ to gratitude. He said, He not only deserves our love and worship, he also deserves our thankful hearts.

Everything that's good in life comes from him. With all we've been given in Christ, gratitude should be as natural as breathing. May we respond to God's gracious gifts by expressing our gratitude to him. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Colossians chapter four, verses two through six.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. Let's pray. Loving Father, every good and perfect gift comes down from you. How grateful we are for your mercy and your love, how grateful we are for every good and perfect gift you provide for us. Teach us to be thankful and give us hearts filled with gratitude to you for all that you have done for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.