Thanksgiving

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands! 
Serve the Lord with gladness! Come before His presence with singing! 
Know (perceive, recognise, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God! 
It is He Who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name! 
For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations. Psalm 100 AMP

Today, let's give thanks. Today, let's make the majority of the words that come out of our mouths be words of thanks. Not words of complaint and request, but words of gratitude, thankfulness and contentedness. The Message Bible puts it this way,

On your feet now - applaud GOD!
Bring a gift of laughter, 
sing yourselves into his presence.

Know this: GOD is God, and God, GOD.
He made us; we didn't make him.
We're his people, his well-tended sheep.

Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.

For GOD is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
Psalm 100 The Message

I know it can be challenging to give thanks when circumstances don't lend themselves to being thankful. It definitely is a choice to lift up eyes and heart and look to God, rather than look around at your 'everyday'. But that is what God calls us to do.

Be earnest and unwearied and steadfast in your prayer [life], being [both] alert and intent in [your praying] with thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2 AMP

God is our only real hope. He is the One who can bring real change in hearts and minds. So how vital is it that we stick with Him, always giving thanks.

Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 2:7 AMP 

Thank you Jesus that you came and defeated the enemy. 

[God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross]. Colossians 2:15 AMP

Thank you Jesus that you are the Way, the Truth and the Life and that you provided a way for us to come back into relationship with our Heavenly Father. We no longer have to be isolated, striving to do life on our own.

Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me. John 14:6 AMP

Thank you for the Holy Spirit that remains with us forever.

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener and Standby), that He may remain with you forever - The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognise Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you. John 14:16-17 AMP

One last word on thankfulness, actually it is a picture ....

And whenever the living creatures offer glory and honour and thanksgiving to Him Who sits on the throne, Who lives forever and ever (through the eternities of the eternities), the twenty-four elders (the members of the heavenly Sanhedrin) fall prostrate before Him Who is sitting on the throne, and they worship Him Who lives forever and ever; and they throw down their crowns before the throne, crying out,
Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honour and dominion, for You created all things; by Your will they were [brought into being and were created.
Revelation 4:9-11 AMP