Title: Why We Should Be Grateful
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The LORD is my shepherd; I will not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters. He revives my soul and leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff comfort me. You have set a table for me in the sight of my enemies; you have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalm 23:1-6)
Looking back on the past year, I had a dream-like life. It was truly a turbulent year. Things that I had neither started nor planned are happening in my life and are leading the change in my destiny. Others applaud and criticize. However, one thing is clear: My shepherd, my master, and my teacher, the Lord, who is my shepherd, my master, and my teacher, I do not know how, but he leads me by his hand.
Even if you lead me to Golgotha, the road of death filled with shame, contempt, and ridicule, I can't help it. Even if the Lord who leads me always leads me to a place of glory and praise, I am just grateful. For whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. But, everyone, when I part with the grace that the faithful Lord has given me, my cup is overflowing. Lord, who became my friend even on the road of trials and pains, Lord who showed me a new hope when I was in a place of sighs and despair. Thank you for making it happen.
Looking back on the past year, even though I have been unable to protect myself and my family, the Lord has protected me and my family just like a mother chicken embraces and protects its chicks. Thank you also for protecting the half of this land and allowing me to live here praising God today. So, today, our church is going to offer all kinds of grace to God's altar by putting it in the praise of our choir.
The new blessing that Christianity has given us when Christianity came to Korea is that we can sing with a grateful heart and spiritual songs. For a long time, we have lived without gratitude and without a feeling of gratitude. It can be seen by looking at the faces of each of our people. Tired of the hardships of life, tired of the invasion of neighboring countries, and tired of partisan fights, his expression is always in depressing mode. So, we are a nation that has always lived in resentment, always complaining, always worried, and always in sorrow and sighing. Now, in any situation, we sing a song of thanksgiving and live. All things belong to the Lord, but thanks to the blessing of the Lord, I am able to live without lack, so I am just thankful. Although we lost something physically, our spiritual grace was more abundant. So today, it is right for us to offer the 1980 Thanksgiving as a sacrifice with thanks and praise.
However, there is a mystery of Christianity, which is that thanksgiving creates more conditions for being grateful. A machine that produces blessings to be grateful for is a life of gratitude. That's weird. When you offer a grateful heart, a grateful life, a grateful devotion, and an offering of thanks to God, the grace of gratitude pours out even more. But it's not unusual. When you give a gift to your parents or siblings, even if it's insignificant, you are very grateful for that gift, and if you give thanks, you will want to give something even better. We should not blame the sky for this year's farming because it is a famine, and we should live with gratitude even if we just stop. If you do not appreciate the circumstances and circumstances given to you, but rather have resentments and complaints, you will be deprived of the given opportunities and conditions.
Freedom, justice, and peace are nurtured like life, not beaten together. Let us offer our thanksgiving offerings to God with gratitude for the graces given and with a grateful heart. Some people argue about why the church is talking about money. But I have no intention of talking about money at all. The reason why I have to give so much to my heart's content and to overflowing with virtue is because there is nothing left in your life other than what you have dedicated. Time, sacrifice, effort, knowledge, make them an offering of thanks to the Lord. Gratitude creates only the conditions of gratitude.
Spiritual songs dispel sorrow, relieve anxiety, and remove sorrow. When you sing a hymn, the devil of despair flees, and the angel of hope comes to you with divine praise. Christianity is a religion of song and a religion of hymns. It is a religion where both the old and the young worship with hymns and live their lives through hymns. It is said that the apostles sang praises even in prison. As I was singing a hymn, I saw that the prison door was open. Even that frozen wall between the two Koreas will one day come down by itself if a song of praise flows from under the skies of the two Koreas. The members of the early church were martyred while singing hymns even when they became food for the lions in the Roman amphitheater. There is no resentment, quarrels, hatred, curses, or enemies in the heart of singing hymns. It is said that there are no sermons, no prayers, no offerings, only hymns are sung in the worship service in heaven.
Theologian Karl Barth said that if he died and went to heaven, the first thing he would do was see Jesus and say hello, then he would go directly to the malignant Mozart and thank him for his music. Let's give our praise to God by tying all of us together in today's Choir Praise. And let this divine praise fill our homes and our societies to drive away the loud, decadent, and filthy songs. And let's make our gloomy country, our society, our neighbors a place of laughter and joy.