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Pastor Chris White says to all of you: HELLO MY FRIENDS. May the Lord bless you today. HOLA MIS AMIGOS. Que el Señor los bendiga.
The Bible says much about gratitude as well as
the lack of it. God knows how we are made, and He designed us to thrive when we
are humble, moral, and thankful. When we are arrogant, immoral, and ungrateful,
we cannot have fellowship with Him, nor can we experience all it means to be
created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). So God included repeated
commands in His Word about being thankful, reminding us that a grateful
heart is a happy heart (1 Thessalonians 5:18; Colossians 3:15; Psalm 105:1).
Ingratitude is a sin with severe repercussions. Romans 1:18–32 gives a detailed
description of the downfall of a person or a society. Listed alongside
idolatry, homosexuality, and every kind of rebellion is unthankfulness. Verse
21 says, “Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave
thanks to him.” This tells us that God takes gratefulness—and
ungratefulness—seriously. As long as a person or a culture remains thankful to
God, they retain a sensitivity to His presence. Thankfulness toward God requires a belief
in God at the very least, and ingratitude fails to fulfill our responsibility
to acknowledge Him (Proverbs 3:5–6; Psalm 100:4). When we refuse to be thankful or
to express gratitude, we grow hard-hearted and proud. We take for granted all
God has given us and become our own gods.
Jesus’ healing of the ten
lepers gives an example of how highly God values thankfulness (Luke 17:12–19). Jesus healed all ten men, but
only one returned to thank Him (verse 15). The Bible specifically records that
the thankful leper was not even a Jew. He was a Samaritan, a fact that drove
home the idea that Jews were not the only people who could reach the heart of
God. The Lord notices those who thank Him, regardless of socio-political status
or level of spirituality. His questions “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are
the other nine?” (verse 17) show His disappointment at the ingratitude of the
majority.
Second Timothy 3:2 describes what people
will be like in the last days, and one characteristic is ingratitude. When
pride and self-rule become fashionable, the human heart has no one to thank. We
become convinced of our own supremacy and consider all we have as a just reward
for our efforts. We are wise to heed Paul’s rhetorical questions “What do you
have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as
though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Ingratitude toward God is not so much a cause of evil but the result of it.
Once we have hardened our hearts to the point that we no longer see God as the
source of our gifts, nothing is off-limits. We become a law unto ourselves. One
reason the Bible takes such a strong stance against unthankfulness and
ingratitude may be that God knows that the end result of such arrogance is
a reprobate mind (Romans 1:24). When we remind ourselves often
that all we are and all we have is a gift from God (James 1:17), we are guarding ourselves against
idolatry and pride.
Thank you to Got Questions Ministries
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