One of the crazy challenges we got from Paul in the opening chapter of Colossians was monumental.

Do you know that out of the 13 books Paul wrote for the new testament, he never once thanked a single person. I checked, I can’t find it. If you find it, send it to me. But Paul refrained from ever saying Thank You to someone. He always said that he thanked God. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself.

“I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you” – Romans 1:8

“I give thanks to my God always for you” – 1 Cor. 1:4

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you” – Philippians 1:3

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you” – Colossians 1:3

And the list goes on and on. The wild thing that we learned was how we could and should also take the opportunity to thank God for people and their actions. Do we really realize that it is God’s ability to put love and compassion in other human beings. When someone says something nice to you, do you ever realize that it is an impact of a living person that gave that compliment.  That is what makes us different than any other living creature.

As we met together as men, we took the hard challenge to attempt to not thank people but thank God. Openly and outwardly. It was not easy.  The action of making outward thanks to God provides a couple of great opportunities.

• It let’s the person you would normally thank that you treasure them via God. That you are grateful what God has done in their lives.
• It provides a way for us to share with other people who our hope is in. It gives credit to the one that really deserves credit.

The interesting discussion we had was what it might look like. Can you imagine if everyone just thanked God every time that they would normally thank other people. Do we really think that if we focused all our gratitude on God that we would have problems? Riots, fights and passivity where the country would be in worse shape than it is?

We would like you to take the challenge and attempt to say “I thank God for …” when you are urged to say thanks. Let us know how it goes. Allow the glory you have received from Him, be your confidence. In closing, we thank God for you reading this and for your desire to pursue Him more each day!