Contentment and Rejoicing With Others

God commands us in His Word to “Rejoice with them that rejoice.” One of the Ten Commandments also says not to covet something that is my neighbors. If I am content with what I have and thankful for what I have, I can easily rejoice when someone else receives a blessing, even if it’s something I don’t have. I can recognize that I don’t need to have everything someone else has. 

In this Fall season we have Thanksgiving in America, but then we turn around and have Christmas. Thanksgiving we’re supposedly praising God for all His blessings. Then if we turn around and make a list of all those things that we wish we had, was our thankfulness real? Were we truly content with what we already had? If we received nothing for Christmas, would it bother us? What if we only gave to others for Christmas and received nothing? 

Giving is amazing, especially when you find out it’s something that that person really needed. Giving is so much better than receiving. Not all gifts are physical and material. Gifts are blessings. Blessings are gifts. To breath, to have health, to have food, water, shelter, clothing, all our basic needs are truly daily gifts from God. God Himself is the greatest gift that we should cherish every day. David longed to be in His presence more than anything else. His salvation is how we receive His presence and fellowship. It is how we receive eternal forgiveness, that peace that passes all understanding, that we cannot receive any other way. 

We need to count our blessings. We need to count our spiritual blessings among those. God is so good to us every single day. We cannot take our Creator for granted. We must rejoice in Him and cherish Him and be in awe and humbled before Him. We do not deserve all His benefits He lovingly pours on us and makes our cups overflow every day. Let’s remind ourselves. Let’s  remind others as we tell about God’s wonderful works to the children of men.