Gratitude: God's Power for Righteous Living

Recently, I believe, the Lord has been teaching me that gratitude is a powerful thing. If love is the fulfillment of the Law, then the regular exercise of gratitude is the means by which we gain the love for God - the bondedness to God - which makes us willing and able increasingly to do His will. The Holy Spirit has a double ministry: He convicts the world of sin and judgment, but He also testifies to the believer's forgiveness and perfect righteousness in Christ. He is Himself the thankfulness that we seek - as Jesus said, He is a fountain that never runs dry, welling up to eternal life, bubbling over in joyful service to our neighbors.

To be continually thankful is to be continually in prayer. To be continually thankful is not to deny our needs, or the needs of others, but rather to commit them to God, knowing that He alone can sustain us in them.

I have made a resolution with myself today that I will not use God's evident blessings in my life as an accusation against Him. Often I have taken God's blessings and made them a burden to myself by asking Him, "Why do you not bless others in these same ways?" - both spiritually (salvation) and temporally (knowledge & talents, wealth, a great family, great relationships in general, a job I enjoy & which I am good at doing).

This, I realize now, has been the tool of the Devil in my life. God does not want me to be guilty for the blessings He has given me <em>nor</em> does He want me to hoard them to myself, continually demanding more for my own pleasure. As the book of James says (in accord with the teachings of Jesus), God has no problem with people asking Him for blessing; in fact, He delights when His people ask. But they do not have because they ask wrongly, or for the wrong things - taking the gifts of God and using them simply for their own earthly pleasure. No one who does this can truly know the thankfulness and joy that communion with God brings.

I will no longer look at the situation of those around me and ask God, "Why haven't you done something?" In this life, we see God's purposes in such small measure. If we even can grasp His purpose for our life, for our own current moment, we are doing well. Rather than criticize how God is governing the world in general, I will be thankful for how He is providing in my life and will be faithful in prayer to ask Him how He wishes me to use my talents as a blessing in the lives of others.

Douglas Wilson, for all I disagree with him, has it right on how gratitude leads to generosity. If we here in America had a deeper experiential knowledge of God's generosity - a firmer confidence in His grace - then we would inevitably be more generosity toward others. As the Apostle Paul said, "What do you have that you did not receive?" Knowing that all we possess - material goods, talents, the Gospel itself - is a gift of God makes us good stewards, willing to share our gifts with others and willing to trust our lives to their Giver.  If everything went pear-shaped tomorrow, I need to know that I can still be thankful to God. We only truly enjoy the earthly possessions that we are willing to give up, for the sake of the One who gave them.

Martin Luther's teaching of justification by faith alone is often misunderstood, as if the knowledge that we are fully freed from gaining God's approval could be opposed to working for the good of others. On the contrary, as Luther's "Freedom of the Christian" makes clear, it is because we are set free from all forms of self-justification and salvation by works that we are able to love others with the beginnings of the spontaneity with which God loves them. We have no need to lord ourselves over our neighbor, knowing that in Christ our Lord we possess all things. We have no need to judge our neighbor, knowing that in Christ our Savior, we have died and been raised again to life, that we might no longer live for ourselves, but live to God. In Him, we may forever be at rest, even as we work diligently at that to which He has called us. How can one who has heard the Word of Christ - who "calls the things that are not as if they were," justifying the ungodly - avoid hearing that Word when it calls us to service?

To quote Luther:

For man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body, in order to work on its account, but also for all men on earth; nay, he lives only for others, and not for himself. For it is to this end that he brings his own body into subjection, that he may be able to serve others more sincerely and more freely . . .

Yet a Christian has need of none of these things for justification and salvation, but in all his works he ought to entertain this view and look only to this object—that he may serve and be useful to others in all that he does; having nothing before his eyes but the necessities and the advantage of his neighbour. . . .

Here is the truly Christian life, here is faith really working by love, when a man applies himself with joy and love to the works of that freest servitude in which he serves others voluntarily and for nought, himself abundantly satisfied in the fulness and riches of his own faith. . . .

Now unto Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us without fault before the Throne, to the only wise God, be glory, power, dominion, and authority, now and forevermore. Amen.