It is an awesome thing to be a Christian. I continually marvel at the life God has opened up to me by connecting me with Himself through Jesus. Truly the Christian has been put in such an awesome place of relationship with this totally astounding being that is God that deep seated gratitude cannot possibly be wanting in their life. There is so much to be thankful for, isn’t there? We need to be thankful for who God is, we need to be thankful that we are in relationship with Him, we need to be thankful that we have met Jesus, that we even understand who Jesus is, we need to be thankful that we are saved, that we are filled with the Holy Ghost.
We need to wake up daily with glad hearts that we are a part of the family of God, we need to stop and celebrate that we are part of God’s family and that Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brethren. Gratitude must well up in our beings and fill our hearts merely at the thought that we no longer under any condemnation but have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. We have cause to be grateful; and when we sense gratitude lacking in our hearts, we need to take time out to refuel and renew our sense of gratitude to God.
We must be more alarmed at spiritual barrenness than we are at natural barrenness. People worry when things are not quite as they ought to be at work, or at home. External difficulties attract our attention fast and push us to fast and pray and petition God wildly for a solution. We must be no more complacent about spiritual coldness and barrenness than we are about natural challenges.
Giving thanks, said E.M Bounds, “is the very life of prayer”, “it is its fragrance and music, its poetry and it’s crown”. When you find that your heart is no longer thrilled with God, that thanksgiving and praise become perfunctory, a thing you only do ‘by faith’ without accompanying consciousness of gratitude, then you need some time out. It’s time to fast and pray and meditate on God’s word till you are again overwhelmed and deeply affected by the consciousness of the goodness of God, lost in wonderment at the magnificent ways of God towards man, and your heart swells with gratitude and your mouth bursts forth in thanksgiving and praise. That is normal Christianity.
Selah!