Inspirational Gratitude (Gratitude 2)

When a kettle boils, you know it, when a child receives something they have been desperate for, they can’t stop saying thank you and when the Welsh rugby team is ranked number one in the world, a fan will find a way to introduce it to almost any conversation…(Sorry).

All these reactions express the different levels of gratitude we can have towards God. The question at the heart of this blog is, what level are we at and for what?

Simply put, the levels of gratitude are:

Level 0 – I am not grateful in any meaningful way at all.

Level 1 – I know I am grateful but no one else does.

Level 2 – I know I am grateful AND I have expressed it to God out of the overflow of my heart.

Level 3 – I know I am grateful AND I have expressed it to God out of the overflow of my heart AND I want others to know just how awesome the gift is.

For example, I bashed my car last night into a telegraph pole and broke my break light!!!

No one was hurt but when I went out to pray this morning I started with “I guess I need to be grateful for smashing my break light God, but frankly, I am not…” Clearly I was starting at 0! The good news is that I finished praying at level 2, but to be honest, I didn’t quite get to level 3.

The Corinthians were a little like this in the next NT 2 examples of our key word “eucharistos“:

“Otherwise when you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an inquirer, say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? You are giving thanks well enough, but no one else is edified.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭14:16-17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Essentially, they were speaking their thanks to God and not considering how it was impacting those around them. I think it is possible to stop short of all our relationship with God can be! Walking away from a prayer time or bible study satisfied with a purely vertical experience. Have a time with God that is great while I am there but do other people see it in us as the day wears on, do they hear and feel the gratitude that propels us forwards and puts everything in perspective. Do we sometimes miss the fact that God wants us to have an infectious, overflowing kind of gratitude and not just one reserved for God and I?

There are seekers around us who are wondering if Jesus is the real thing and our levels of gratitude and thankfulness will have a huge impact on them. The amazing thing is that God is bringing people to him all the time and when we keep our gratitude to ourselves (worry about praying before we eat, only sharing answers to prayers with Christians and holding back on how awesome Church was, on Sunday, etc) we rob them of the chance to say AMEN. The word used for edify in v 17 actually means building a house. If those around us see, hear and feel our thankfulness then God will use it to build their houses of faith.

So some points to reflect on today are:

1. What is your level of gratitude and what can you do to sincerely reach level 4?

2. Who’s house of faith could you build today by sharing your gratitude and thankfulness?

What do you “Know” about God, Romans 8:28

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The first things that Paul points out is that we “know” that God works for the good. There are a number of types of knowing. A simple intellectual assent, a memory of a sermon or memory scripture that you can repeat or there is a definite sense of deep knowledge. It is a sure and confident knowledge that is based on something that you think is incontrovertible.

I am at Barcelona airport on my way home today and am getting on a plane. It is safe because every other plane I have been on has been great and the airline has a terrific safety record. The weather is super and the flight is short, so I know it is safe. The crew seem relaxed and the Captain sounded confident and professional so I know it is safe. However I also know that planes have crashed before and unfortunately it will happen again. So what do I actually know?

What I actually know is that it is very unlikely to crash so I can relax. But if any variables shift or change I will be on high alert and it won’t take too much to convince me that I am not as safe as I thought. Pretty soon after that the emotions would kick in and so would the stress and panic. My faith would be shown to be what it is, a probability play based on incomplete knowledge.

I do not “know” at all, I just think it is highly unlikely.

I think my faith can be like this. One of the ways you know you are playing the probablilites rather than having faith is how you feel when you hit some turbulence in your life.

Faith doesn’t play the odds and it doesn’t flex based on the situation – “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews‬ ‭11:1‬ ‭NIV‬‬

So my question is, as you face your life right now, what do you “know” about God and how is that making you feel?

The Scripture that explains it all to me… (Romans 8:29-37)

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8:28-32, 37‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This is the key scripture for me, it both explains and enables the entirety of the Christian life. I see its themes and message throughout the Bible, summarising the purpose of this life and what it is to be human and have a relationship with God. There is nothing that is outside of this verse in all creation. Each interaction, each opportunity and challenge is explained in these verses.

So I am going to study it through word by word for a while and really get to understand what it is about and what it means. I am also studying a number of other topics so it wont be everyday but I am, over time , going to chase this down so that I have a simple summary of it as a verse and can apply it to life.

I hope you find it helpful.