Welcome to Day 141 of the “Manna for the Mind” devotional! This series is about finding nourishment in the Word of God to get us through the day. In each devotional, I take a variety of scripture passages (typically 1-3 verses each) and build our understanding of what they teach via their context and connecting scripture. My goal is to help you understand how to be the type of human God created you to be.

Today’s passage is Colossians 3:16. Paul shares how we can keep the word of Christ in our hearts.

Colossians 3:16

NASB	NLT	VOICE
16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.	16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.	16 Let the word of the Anointed One richly inhabit your lives. With all wisdom teach, counsel, and instruct one another. Sing the psalms, compose hymns and songs inspired by the Spirit, and keep on singing – sing to God from hearts full and spilling over with thankfulness.

The early Christians built their lives around the Old Testament. They wouldn’t have had the New Testament as we know it today or the variety of studies we have access to today. Their stories and teachings about Jesus were ones that they would have memorized and passed on from person to person. A lot of Bible stories were passed from generation to generation orally. Imagine they would sit around the campfire or the dinner table and share the history of their ancestors, what God did for them, and how that would impact them today. It was less about the analytical intellect and more about the emotional and relational side of knowing God. Sometimes, these teachings were even set to music, making it an essential part of Christian worship and education.

We can use our gratitude to worship God wholeheartedly. Gratitude opens our hearts to God’s peace and lets us focus our thoughts, actions, and desires on love. Discontent people will continuously focus on what’s wrong in their lives and compare what they feel they lack with those around them. God’s peace allows us to find contentment in what we have. It may not be what we need, want, or even where we’d thought we would be. Yet, we can thank and praise God for all we have in what we have and the small parts of our daily routines.

To increase our gratitude, we can inventory everything we have. Use this as a point of conversation with God in prayer. Make a day of gratitude, or at least a routine of sharing gratitude with him. Before your worship time, take your time getting there. Take some time to find your reasons for being thankful. Celebrate God’s goodness, and pray for God’s guidance and peace for all you need in the week ahead. We all have different things we can be grateful for, whether it’s our first breath, our roof over our head, our food in the fridge, our clothes on our backs, and more. Share what you’re grateful for with the Savior, our ultimate provider.

BREATHE IN:                   God, thank you…

BREATHE OUT:               …for all I have.

Until next time, stay blessed!