How To Have Gratitude Because God is God
We live in a society that is filled with ingratitude. We are rarely thankful and few see the goodness of God in their life.
Jesus healed ten lepers but only one returned to show his gratitude. Nine went on with their lives never choosing gratitude but instead demonstrating ingratitude through their lack of thanksgiving.
We live in a society that is filled with ingratitude. We are rarely thankful and few see the goodness of God in their life.
There are three types of people in the world:
1. Those who take God’s blessings for granted.
2. Those who are thankful for how God has blessed them.
3. And those rare few who are grateful to God just because He is God.
Which one are you?
Do you remember the Israelites when they were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years? We’d just about die if we really had a ‘wilderness’ experience.
But wait.
The Israelites DID have a wilderness experience and many of them DID die!!
They died of ingratitude!!
If people actually died every time they said something that exposed their ingratitude, it would hit the news!! Fast!!
God is gracious and we think and say many things out of the ingratitude of our heart without dropping dead.
According to Chuck Swindoll, if Moses’ wife had a cookbook it would probably have been called, “1000 Ways to Cook Manna!”
Manna was the food that came down from heaven like rain every day except Sunday while the Israelites were in the wilderness. They had to eat the same thing, day after day after day after day after day for forty long years.
Can you imagine eating the same thing day after day for forty years?
The Israelites never had to prepare those meals.
How about that?
It was like a dream come true!
But not if you were eating the same thing day in and day out.
The Israelites were just as ungrateful as you or I would be.
No one needed to ask, “What’s for dinner?” They knew!
They hated it and grew weary of its sameness to the point that they lost their appetite (Numbers 11)
They looked back to the years in Egypt and longed for the delicious leeks and onions, forgetting that they paid dearly for them with their slave-labored-toil.
They now had manna, ‘labor free’ as God supplied their every need.
As Chuck Swindoll put it, “Already having much, they now wanted more. Having plenty, they now wanted variety. Having tired of manna, they now wanted meat.”
Life is so daily
God watches to see if we will be grateful for the blessings he showers on our lives.
Will we pass the test?
Will we show gratitude for what God is providing for us?
What if it doesn’t seem like God is answering your prayers? Should we still have gratitude? Or in ‘this’ case, is it alright to have ingratitude?
Maybe for whatever reason, you have a fair amount of debt.
Maybe your house or rent payments are extremely high.
It originally seemed like you would be able to easily make the payments.
Your situation changed, you miscalculated.
You have several loans and it makes things tight.
Certainly, in THIS situation, God wouldn’t expect you to have gratitude?!
No matter what circumstances you find yourself in, God does expect us to have gratitude and say “NO!” to ingratitude.
Just as God blessed the Israelites day after day, week after week to see if they would show Him gratitude, He blesses you and looks for you to return thanks for all He has done.
He wants you to have gratitude for Him just because He is God.