Title: Do You Know Gratitude?
1. Introduction
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good and his mercy endures forever. I will give thanks to you, O LORD, from all peoples; I will praise you from among the nations. May you, O God, be exalted above the heavens, and your glory above all the earth (Psalm 108)!
We give thanks to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57). I thank God for his indescribable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15). O God of my fathers, you have given me wisdom and strength and have made known to me what we asked of you; I give thanks and praise you (Daniel 2:23).
In the Bible, an immeasurable symphony of thanksgiving from 10 million angels and saints is resounding everywhere.
2. What is gratitude?
Gratitude is when a person realizes the help or grace received from another person or God, is truly grateful, and is filled with a sincere heart that is willing to reciprocate with anything. In particular, thanksgiving to God is to praise, confess, and glorify God's grace by realizing that you are alive and in control and in charge of your entire life.
Therefore, the Bible is full of praise and confession of thanksgiving to God. Especially the psalms. Bernhard W. Anderson, in his psalm study Out of the Depths, wrote Psalms 18, 30, 32, 40:1-11, 66:13-20, 92, 116, and 138 as Individual Song of Thanksgiving. There are Psalms 65, 67, 107, 124, and 136 as Community Song of Thanksgiving.
3. Gratitude is directly proportional to the depth of the person's faith and character.
Gratitude is expressed in direct proportion to the depth of the person's faith and character. Then how do you show your gratitude? (I know it's overkill, but I've diagrammed the level of gratitude step-by-step to help you understand).
First step. He is a person who never knows how to be grateful. Their hearts are like brimstone fires that burn endlessly, there are people who always live in complaints and dissatisfaction. When they come in, they complain to their parents and siblings, and when they leave the house, they complain that the whole society is wrong.
Second step. This is the stage where you should be grateful when something useful happens to you. We give thanks only when our wishes come true, such as when a desired baby is born and the mother is safe, when he enters a good school, when he gets a desired job, when he gets a promotion, when he gets married to a beautiful person, etc.
Third step. This is the stage where you appreciate your life itself. Plato always thanked heaven for four things. Being born an Athenian, not a barbarian. Born as a man, not a woman. Born as a free man, not a slave. And it was said that he was born at the same time as the great soul named Socrates and was able to meet him.
In other words, a person who positively accepts their home, work, friends, and life itself and makes it more meaningful and grateful.
Fourth step. This is the stage of giving thanks with a deep interest in nature and neighbors, from the attitude of being grateful only for the relationship with oneself. Look at Psalm 136. I am grateful to see the sea. I am grateful to see the sun, moon and stars in the sky. We are looking back on the history of the nation and giving thanks. Theresa, an 18-year-old girl from Yugoslavia, was grateful to have given her the poor and wretched people of Calcutta, India, and lived with them all her life. Later, people came to call her Mother Teresa.
Fifth step. It's a step to be thankful even if it doesn't go my way. It is a faith that gives thanks in spite of the absurdities of life and the hardships of unknown reasons.
The LORD gave and the LORD took away. Since we have received blessings from God, will we not also receive disasters? (Job 1:21, 2:10) This is the faith we are thankful for. Like Daniel's three friends, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, who were thrown into the furnace, it is the faith that we are thankful for even if we say that He does not rescue us from the pain in the furnace (Daniel 3:18). Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive trees produce no crops, the fields do not produce food, and there are no sheep in the pen, it is the faith of thanksgiving (Hab 3:17). My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as you will (Matthew 26:39).
4. Do you know gratitude?
It is time to harvest the encyclopedia of five grains and close the year 1999. Especially at the end of 1999, around the end of the 1900s and the beginning of the new millennium of the 2000s. It is time for the leap of our faith along with the leap of the century. Let us all quietly ask ourselves. <Do you know gratitude?>.
Word Fountain Church