Start today with praise. Begin with gratitude. Open with a thank you. What the Bible says about gratitude may surprise you. Giving thanks to God is not something that you do just when you feel thankful. It’s more than a feeling. When we are not grateful to God, the Bible warns us there are dire consequences. That’s what Paul says in the opening chapter of the letter of Romans. I want you to notice what he says is the point where humans so often go wrong in their relationship with God. Romans 1:19-22 (NIV) . . . since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools . . . Paul says where we usually go wrong is when we don’t glorify God and give thanks to Him. In fact, when we are not grateful, we become darkened in our thinking, and eventually degrade into sin, and become self-deluded fools. Gratitude gives us perspective. To put it simply, gratitude comes from realizing all that we are not, and all that is out of our control. Often, the source of our anger or resentment is that we don’t have what we want or think we deserve. We get angry when things are unfair, or when we can’t control things to be the way we think they should be. When we focus on everything that is wrong, when we get consumed with forcing things to be “right,” we eventually push God out of the driver’s seat and try to take control of things that are simply out of our control. We get darkened in our thinking, as Paul says, and yes, we get sinful and angry. The reality is we depend on God, and if we stop focusing on what we think we deserve or must get, and instead start by being grateful for all the blessings we already have in Him, that corrects our perspective on everything else. We realize how blessed we are, how many good things we wake up to every day, and that gratitude starts to grow as our resentment and bitterness recedes. So, what blessings did you wake up to today?
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 13:25:19 +0000
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