Cultivating a Grateful Spirit
Cultivating a Grateful Spirit
So what’s the alternative? Believe it or not, we are called to cultivate a grateful spirit that gives thanks under any and all circumstances. How important is it? Type “give thanks” into the search box of your Bible study program and try counting all the references!
Think gratitude is just for good times, when things are going your way? Think again. Romans 1:20–21 explains, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
It says that although men knew God, they failed to give him thanks. What happened next? God seriously punished them for their thankless hearts. That should say something to us; because if a thankless spirit was the undoing of a generation long ago and far away, is it any different today? If even those who only know God by looking at Creation are not excused from giving thanks to him, how much more then ought we, who do have a relationship with God, to give thanks to him!