Episode notes
YOUR CHALLENGE
Discover a blessing from God each day, and express gratitude to Him and to someone else for it. As yourgratitude increases, watch your gladness grow by leaps and bounds!
DEVOTIONAL
The theme of Psalm 107 is giving audible thanks to God for His goodness. The psalm gives four “personal testimonies”—illustrations of those who have been redeemed by the Lord and have reason to give Him thanks. Each testimony includes a similar progression: distress over the straits people found themselves in, a desperate cry to the Lord for help, and divine deliverance.
The passage is punctuated by a response—a “thanksgiving chorus” that is repeated at the end of each testimony:
Let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love and His wondrous works for all humanity. (vv. 8, 15, 21, 31)
How does this progressive pattern show up in your life? Have you developed your own thanksgiving chorus in response to all the ways God has seen your distresses, heard your desperate cries, and provided divine deliverance?
Father God, I am so grateful You see my distresses, hear my desperate cries, and willingly provide divine deliverance. Thanks for bringing me out of darkness and breaking the chains of sin that ensnared me. Thank You for Your goodness, for Your steadfast love that endures, for me, forever.
GRATITUDE IN ACTION
Write out your own personal testimony of God’s saving grace, following the progression found in Psalm 107.
- What was your life like before He redeemed you? (If you need help getting started, take a look at Ephesians 2:1-3.)
- How did God bring you to the end of yourself, to the place where you cried out to Him for mercy?
- What has changed in your life since He delivered you from your slavery to sin?
Now reread the first two verses of Psalm 107 and the “chorus” that recurs throughout. Take time to thank the Lord for His steadfast love and His redeeming work in your life.