In society today, there is a great feeling of entitlement. Many feel they are owed a life of success and happiness. If they are not happy or successful, it is someone else’s fault. Taking responsibility for failure is a rare thing. On the opposite scope, if success is achieved, many feel it was all them. A common phrase, “a self-made man,” is used often by those who work hard and rise to the top. Even Christians, often forget how to be thankful and grateful.
The dictionary defines thankful as “being conscious of benefits received.” We have come to believe that saying “thank you” is showing thankfulness, but I believe most of the time our words “thank you,” are words used simply from habit. We teach our children to say thank you, and rightfully so, but we need to teach that it’s not just words. We are conditioned to be polite, and we remember to be polite, to say thanks when someone opens the door for us, but we forget it an hour later. I believe most of the time when people say thank you, it is just polite words.
Gratitude happens at a deeper level than just being thankful. It engages the heart and the mind. It is not just a polite response to an action. It is the manifestation of love, commitment, and devotion, toward those who mean something to you. I believe gratitude is the next step past being thankful. Gratitude will take you to the next level of thankfulness. It will cause you to want to show your thankfulness, not just say thank you. Gratitude starts in the mind. It is not just a thought, but a process in the mind that acknowledges what people or God has done for you. Gratitude is a feeling that must be expressed. Gratitude causes you to look for ways to express yourself. It’s not a fleeting thought.
When Paul thanks Jesus in I Timothy 1:12, he is doing more than saying thank you. He is being grateful. He expresses what God has done for him, and how undeserving he was of what God had done. Paul acknowledges that it is God that enabled him to be an effective minister.
Paul also looks back to what he was before his salvation. The reality of who he was makes him even more grateful. Unfortunately, most think they are pretty good people and don’t need a Savior. They have it all together and feel they have achieved what they have on their own. Even Christians seem to undermine their depravity before salvation. They fail to understand that we are God’s enemies before salvation and that anything we do is nothing more than filthy rags in God’s eyes. We need to come down off our pedestal, and see ourselves the way God sees us before salvation. We are His enemies! We are liars, disobedient, pleasure seekers, and totally committed to our own happiness. We are selfish creatures.
I Timothy 1:12-13 “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
Looking back, Paul understood that he was against anything that attached itself to Christ. He was a zealous Jew and a highly respected man among the Jews. He was an upstanding citizen that we would consider a good person. We are so skewed in our thinking by the world, that it causes us to call bad good if it is acceptable by society. We have placed the average man as our gauge for what is good or bad. However, Christ is to be our standard, and Paul got that picture loud and clear. This understanding caused him to be so grateful there was nothing that could deter him from going all out for Jesus Christ.
Are you thankful today, or are you experiencing gratitude? If you are grateful where is the evidence of that gratitude? What is your limit on your expression of gratitude?
Mark 10:17 “And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”
Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
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