We teach children to say thank you. We send cards, and we set aside a holiday for it. Yet many of us find real, lasting gratitude surprisingly hard, especially when life isn’t going the way we hoped.
The Bible treats gratitude as far more than good manners. Here are Bible verses about gratitude and giving thanks, what they teach us, and how to make thankfulness a way of life.
Gratitude Is God’s Will for You
“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT
People often wonder what God’s will is for their lives. This verse answers part of that question plainly: thankfulness.
Notice, too, that Paul says in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. We aren’t asked to be glad about everything that happens. We’re asked to remain thankful through it, because God is still good and still with us.
Gratitude Is a Posture of the Heart
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.”
Psalm 100:4 NLT
In my book, Renewing Your Mind: Living Life Intentionally, I describe it this way:
“Being grateful is more than just a habit, more than just words spoken out of a sense of duty, propriety, or obligation, it is an attitude, a posture of the heart.”
Thanksgiving is how we come near to God. It turns our attention from what we lack to who He is.
Bible Verses About Giving Thanks for Who God Is
For His goodness and love.
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.”
Psalm 107:1 NLT
For every good gift.
“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.”
James 1:17 NLT
For His nearness.
“We thank you, O God! We give thanks because you are near. People everywhere tell of your wonderful deeds.”
Psalm 75:1 NLT
Remembering to Say Thank You
Luke tells of ten men with leprosy whom Jesus healed. Only one came back:
“One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, ‘Praise God!’ He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, ‘Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine?’”
Luke 17:15–17 NLT
That story stopped me. As I wrote in the book:
“I’m sure I must have heard that story several times before I wondered if I had been living life more like the nine who got caught up in the moment and forgot to stop and give thanks before carrying on.”
Most of us aren’t ungrateful on purpose. We’re simply busy, and blessings slip by unnoticed.
Gratitude When Life Is Hard
Being thankful is easiest when things go well. Scripture shows how much it matters when they don’t. After God rescued Israel from Egypt, the people grumbled again and again in the wilderness, and that generation didn’t enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14). Caleb, God said, had “a different attitude than the others” (Numbers 14:24 NLT), and he did.
I learned this in a hard season of my own. In the book I describe what changed:
“The second thing I began doing differently was to adopt an attitude of gratitude. I began to deliberately invest time each day in being thankful… I began a ‘thankfulness journal’ in the Notes app on my phone. I thanked God for the good things in my life, as well as the beauty He created all around me. Shifting my focus and deliberately being thankful made all the difference in the world.”
Gratitude didn’t make the trials disappear. It changed where I was looking.
Gratitude That Overflows
Paul describes thankfulness as what grows from a life rooted in Christ:
“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”
Colossians 2:7 NLT
Gratitude isn’t something we squeeze out by effort. It overflows as we stay rooted in Him.
How to Practise Gratitude
- Keep a thankfulness journal. Write down what God has done, and read it back on hard days.
- Thank God for who He is, not only for what He gives.
- Remember what you have in Christ. In the book I list some of it: forgiven, free, adopted into God’s family, a new creation, never alone.
- Say thank you to people. Gratitude toward God tends to spill over into gratitude toward others.
- Make it daily. As I put it in the book, gratitude can move from a once-a-year holiday to “thanks-living, an everyday lifestyle of thanks and praise.”
Keep a Verse of Thanks Close
Choose one verse from this page and keep it with you this week. Psalm 100:4 and Psalm 107:1 are both on our Scripture Cards (opens in a new tab), made to carry in your pocket. Gratitude and joy grow together; see also Bible Verses About Joy (opens in a new tab).
Go Deeper
These verses come from the gratitude chapter of my book, Renewing Your Mind: Living Life Intentionally, which looks at what crowds out thankfulness and how to live gratefully on purpose.
Let Gratitude Renew Your Mind
What we focus on shapes how we think and live, and gratitude turns our focus toward God. At Renewing Your Mind Discipleship Ministry, we teach a simple way to engage God’s Word so it changes how you live, in four parts. We call it The Process.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
