Gratitude?
Gordon Crook, PastorGrace Assembly, Wichita, Kansas
“Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, . . . And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.” Deuteronomy 8:11-18 (Please read this entire passage)
What is true gratitude? Where does it come from? Why does it matter?
True gratitude comes from a humility that recognizes that what we have is not of our own accomplishment. Not a single one of us had any hand in our own existence. Only God can give life. When you start here, then you must recognize that everything after that is based on that first fact. I am not capable of accomplishing anything except that God gave me life and further enables me to continue that life. “Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, . . .” Hebrews 1:3.
If indeed everything from the beginning of my life is dependent upon God, then would I not have a sincere sense of gratitude? Our old nature inspired by the culture in which we live would have us show some sense of gratitude for the really “good” things that come in our life. However, we then can complain and murmur about the “bad” things that come in our life.
Perhaps this is exactly why Paul reminds us, in Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good to those that belong to God. We often say that we believe this, but the way we know if we believe it is our attitude when things do not go the way we wanted them to. If we truly believe, then we will be grateful even when things go “wrong.”
We also must recognize that we do not, did not, and will not “deserve” any of what God provides for us. Most people will argue that we do deserve certain things. There are certain things that are “human rights” based on humanist thinking. The truth is that there is nothing that we deserve, except for God’s wrath. I know this is not popular, but it is the truth. This makes me extra grateful for a God that loves me and has, through Christ Jesus, provided all that I need even though I do not deserve it.
Where does this kind of gratitude come from? It comes from the New Creation that is in us. The life of Christ that is transforming our heart from a hard stony heart to a heart that is true to God. This transformation is changing our attitudes every day as we yield to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Paul reminds us of the characteristics of the old nature. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,” 2 Timothy 3:2. Notice the “unthankful” which in Greek, is the negative form of “grateful.” While this is the natural attitude of human beings, we who have the life of Christ in us, are being changed and should have different attitude of gratitude.
I was impressed with Jesus, while He lived here on this earth, giving thanks to His Father on several occasions. Luke 10:21, John 11:41, Matthew 15:36, Matthew 26:27 are all examples of this. I think we should recognize that, if Jesus demonstrates an attitude of thankfulness to His Father, we should certainly be following that example.
Why does it matter if we are thankful or not. First of all, what I have already mentioned, that the life of Christ in us will produce this attitude. So, if we say we have Christ, but continue to be unthankful, we are clearly not yielding to that Christ life. This is saddening to our Lord. Remember when Jesus healed in Luke 17:12-19. Only one came back to show gratitude. Jesus questioned as to the other nine. Why did they not turn back to be thankful? Does our attention to ourself and our other interests keep us from expressing our gratitude?
I know that we have a day that we call Thanksgiving, and we all have our own way or tradition for celebrating that. However, maybe we should think about every single day as being a day of thanksgiving. When you wake up in the morning are you thankful for God’s faithfulness? When you eat your meals, are you thankful for God’s provision? Every moment of every day is a great time to express our gratitude to our Father.
