Gratitude Part 2
Part 2 on Gratitude
In my last blog, I introduced the topic of gratitude and explained why it is so vitally important to pursue. It helps us to stay out of sin, it helps us to trust God and to lay hold of the joy God wants us to know. I discussed how our selfish sense of entitlement keeps us from being grateful. So, how do we become grateful people? In this installment of my series on gratitude, I want to talk about the theological truths we need to know and embrace in order to be grateful.
The most fundamental thing to understand is that we cannot be thankful unless we understand who we are and who God is. So, let’s discuss that. Here are truths from God’s word to help us be grateful:
1. Remember that we are frail, fleeting and insignificant. James 4:14 says that our life is “just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” Ecclesiastes 3:20 says “All came from the dust and all return to the dust.” Even the powerful and influential are nothing much compared to God. In Isaiah 40, God talks about rulers: “He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them and they wither and the storm carries them away like stubble.” Job 34:14-15 reminds us, “If He should determine to do so, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.” Psalm 144:3-4 “O Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that You think of him? Man is like a mere breath; his days are like a passing shadow.” In Job 38-41, God asks Job a series of questions to help him regain the right perspective on who Job is because he was complaining about his suffering. Here are a few of the questions God asked Job that always help me gain perspective when I read them: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth!” “Have you ever in your life commanded the morning and caused the dawn to know its place”; “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season and guide the Bear with her satellites?”; “Can you lift your voice to the clouds, so that an abundance of water may cover you?”; “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, stretching his wings toward the south?” When we really understand who we are, our sense of entitlement is smashed to pieces! Those who are ungrateful forget how insignificant and helpless they are.
2. Remember that we have nothing that we have not been given. We like to think we have earned all we have by our own efforts. While God commands us to work hard with the abilities and opportunities He gives us, it is God who gives us the strength, the opportunities and the talents to be able to do anything. And He asks us to be stewards of all He has given us, not entitled owners. When David dedicated the things he had collected for the house of God, he said in I Chronicles 29:14 “But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You.” I Corinthians 4:7 reminds us, “And what do you have that you did not receive?” James 1:17 reminds us that “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” Psalm 145 talks about the many wonderful things God does, one of which is in verse 15: “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time.” Ungrateful people forget that any good in their life is something bestowed on them by God. We are completely dependent on Him for everything-things like every breath, every meal, every rain storm, every harvest, protection each day, strength, and every day’s provision. In John 15, Jesus compares Himself to a vine and us to branches who are completely dependent on the vine for everything. In verse 5, He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Ungrateful people forget that all they have is from God.
3. Remember what our heart is like, and what we deserve. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Ephesians 2:3 says that we were “indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath”. Romans 1 talks about God’s judgment on unbelievers who reject God. In verse 21, not giving thanks is listed with not honoring God as grounds for God’s judgment. Because our condition is so dire and we deserve hell, how can we expect anything good? We don’t deserve it. We are helpless and hopeless without our Redeemer. Ephesians2:12b reminds us that we were “strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
4. Remember our Redeemer. Although our condition was dire and hopeless, God in His great love redeemed us through Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins on the cross and through His resurrection from the dead. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Colossians 1:13 says, “For He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” Not only has He redeemed us from hell and brought us into Christ’s kingdom, but He has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. He chose us before the foundation of the world, He predestined us to adoption as sons, He gave us an inheritance, He gave us the Spirit as the pledge of that inheritance, and He has given us a certain hope of heaven that is like an anchor of our souls. (Ephesians 1:3-14,and Hebrews 6:18-19.) Hebrews 12:28 says, “therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.” How can we not overflow with gratitude when we remember what God has done for us insignificant, undeserving, rebellious people?
5. Remember the character of our Redeemer God. The pagan gods are capricious and vengeful. You have to try to appease them with all kinds of sacrifices and duties. The one true God that we serve is not like that! So, even though we are completely at His mercy and under His hand of providence to do with as He wills, we can be thankful because of His good character. He is faithful to His promises, unlike the capricious pagan gods. He is good. Psalm 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good…” His omnipotent power is at work for our good and His glory even when things look dark and grim. Romans 8:28 says, “and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose.” To be grateful, we need to remember who God is and what He has done. Don Green in his book Trusting God in Trying Times says this about remembering what God has done in the past: “The spiritual use of history is a critical component of trusting God in trying times. When adversity or disappointment strikes, you trust God by stepping back and considering what He has done in the past that would give you confidence that He will help you in what lies ahead.” (page 103) Grateful people remember God's character and work.
Here are a few people from history who demonstrate how remembering God’s goodness and power changes responses to bad situations: Joseph was able to say at the end of his life to his brothers who sold him into slavery, after he rose to power and saved his country from starvation in Genesis 50:20 “And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” The apostle Paul and his fellow missionary Silas were beaten and thrown into a Philippian jail. They prayed and sang praises because they knew who God is! (Acts 16:22-25) Corrie Ten Boom gives us a modern day example of giving thanks for God’s providence: “The barracks where Corrie Ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, were kept in the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbruck were terribly overcrowded and flea-infested. They had been able to miraculously smuggle a Bible into the camp, and in that Bible they had read that in all things they were to give thanks and that God can use anything for good. Betsy decided that this meant thanking God for the fleas. This was too much for Corrie, who said she could do no such thing. Betsy insisted, so Corrie gave in and prayed to God, thanking Him even for the fleas. Over the next several months a wonderful, but curious, thing happened: They found that the guards never entered their barracks. This meant that the women were not assaulted. It also meant that they were able to do the unthinkable, which was to hold open Bible studies and prayer meetings in the heart of a Nazi concentration camp. Through this, countless numbers of women came to faith in Christ. Only at the end did they discover why the guards had left them alone and would not enter into their barracks: it was because of the fleas.”(www.paulistcenter.org/remember-the-fleas-of-ravensbruck/)
I recommend that you study the character of God to help you be grateful and revel in all God’s blessings. Knowing God by JI Packer is an excellent book to go through to help understand God’s character. We can be thankful because we know we serve a good and all powerful God.
6. Remember that God commands us to be thankful. I Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” In many of the verses I found on thankfulness in the Bible, there is a command or a call to give thanks. I believe this is because we are so prone to forget our blessings and complain instead. In Psalm 100:4 it says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.” Psalm 106:1 says, “Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.” This is not an option for born again Christians. We must be thankful! So, God will help us to be thankful if we ask Him. He promises in Philippians 4:13 that we can “do all things through Him who strengthens me.” If God commands something, He will enable us to obey it.
Once we understand who we are and who God is, we realize that we don’t deserve good things, and anything we get that is good is given to us because God is good and loves us. Gratitude is then a natural result of this understanding. Gratitude not only is expected of us by God, but also creates great good in our lives.
Corrie Ten Boom shared this lovely poem about God’s providential goodness in our lives that I would like to end this blog with to help you in your quest to be grateful:
My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned
He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.
In my next blog I will discuss some practical steps we can take to become grateful people.
Bible verses to memorize in response to this blog: Hebrews 13:28; James 1:17
A song to help you with thankfulness by remembering who God is: I Call You To Praise (youtube.com)
A song to help you with thankfulness by remembering our salvation: His Robesfor Mine [Lyric Video] (youtube.com)
For questions or feedback, you can contact me at candice@anastasihome.com