Gratitude

The sin of ingratitude, of forgetting those who have helped us, is a rather common but tragic trait of man. We are told that a queen of the Belgians uttered these last words, My people no longer remember me, it is time to go. Her heart was broken by the forgetfulness of those who were so dear to her.

If she neglected her people, there may have been a reason why she was forgotten. If not, her sorrow was caused by the negligence of well-meaning people who were guilty of ingratitude. There are many other events in history which reveal the great reward of gratitude.

Perhaps you've heard the one of the gardener's son living in a well-known estate in Scotland. One day the son saved a young fellow from drowning in a swimming pool. That boy's father was so grateful to the life savior that he financed the gardener's son in the study of medicine, and in later years that physician's name came to be known around the world, Dr. Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin.

Of course, the boy whom he had rescued also became well-known. We know him as Sir Winston Churchill. The story would be quite different if Churchill's father had gone away without any expression of gratitude.

There may be some who feel like saying, how can we be thankful when we have nothing to be thankful for? The answer to that question is, no one ever honestly gets to that place. Whether or not we believe it, the statement can be made that God has been far better to us than any one of us deserves. We are daily indebted to our gracious God for his tender mercies.

They may come so freely and so regularly that we scarcely notice them, and for that reason God sometimes withholds a few to cause us to notice them. Have you been grateful to God today for all his mercies? Have you taken time out to express your gratitude? One of our soloists enjoys singing that hymn, I've been going my way, living life day by day, never thinking or stopping to pray, till the storm clouds drew near, taking loved ones so dear. And then the chorus goes, take time to pray, bow your head in prayer every day.

If we permit one day to pass, or even a part of a day, without lifting our hearts to the Lord in prayer, we are guilty of this common sin of ingratitude. If you are still unsaved, you will have difficulty in praising the Lord beyond just your temporal mercies, your food, your home, your health, your strength, and many more tangible things which cause you to praise the Lord. Those who are saved have a great deal more for which to praise the Lord.

We must not forget our daily bread and other temporal mercies, but that which means even more to us is the great gift of the Savior. In days past, we enjoyed God's temporal mercies, but we knew not the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sins were unforgiven.

We knew God only as a far-distant Creator, a mighty One with unlimited power and wisdom. But, since we've come to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we find ourselves thanking Him first of all for the great salvation that we are now enjoying. A little while ago, we were lost on the broad and crowded road that leads to torment.

You can imagine how unhappy we were in that condition. But we heard a most unusual message from God. It was a message of good news that, in spite of our lost and sinful condition, Christ loved us and took our place at Calvary's cross, dying in our stead and for our sin.

At first, it seemed almost too good to be true. But we found that good news in the Bible, God's holy word. Therefore, it had to be true.

In searching carefully for God's condition of salvation, we found that although Christ died for all sinners, that did not mean that all would be saved, but rather that all men had an opportunity to be saved. The condition upon which God will save sinners is personal faith in Christ and His all-sufficient sacrifice. That is an act of the will, and there has to be a definite moment when we acknowledge our true condition of being lost and helpless.

Then, by a definite act of faith, we place our full confidence in Christ for salvation. His word declares that immediately we are born into God's family, having received divine life. No longer on the broad road that leads to weeping, but on the narrow road that leads to eternal joy and glory.

God pledges His divine honor and power and assures the salvation of all who will accept His Son as Lord and Savior. The great salvation cannot be purchased. It cannot be earned.

It must be received as a gift. Consider this. Supposing it could be bought, what price would you be willing to pay to have all of your sins blotted out? Perhaps you would reply, if I had it, I would give all the money in the world for such a wonderful possession.

It's very strange that many would be glad to sacrifice greatly for the sake of being saved, but when God offers it as a gift, there seems to be no interest in being saved. My most difficult task is to get men and women to believe what God says regarding His plan of salvation. Nearly everyone has formed a personal opinion, and you will hear people saying, this is the way I believe.

It would be far better if they would say, regardless of my former opinion, I want to learn God's condition of salvation. When an honest person lays aside all his own ideas and turns to the Bible, he will discover that salvation is altogether by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from works. One of the first evidences of a true conversion is the expression of gratitude.

Since Christ loved me and died for me, I must thank Him for the remainder of my days. Do you understand why a born-again child of God considers His temple mercies as secondary in comparison to the great blessing of salvation? The greater the deliverance, the greater the appreciation. We have been saved from coming wrath and judgment, and that's a great blessing, to say the least.

God has brought us into a life of peace and satisfaction, and that's quite a contrast to our former unsaved days, when life at times seemed scarcely worthwhile. I am justified in feeling sorry for you who do not personally know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. Your past is not pleasant, your present is almost unbearable, and your future is the worst of all.

It's not intelligent to live that way, and it's not necessary since a loving God stands ready to save you the very moment you will accept His Son as your Savior. You who are still unsaved must at times feel that your prayers are worthless, and that may be true, for when Christ is presented to you as an all-sufficient Savior, and you do not receive Him, you are making God very unhappy. He rejoices over those who trust His Son for salvation.

I can't think of anything that you could do right now that could be of greater importance than to settle the question of your soul salvation. Immediately upon trusting Christ, you will receive a sense of gratitude that you never possessed before, and like the great Apostle of the New Testament, you will be able to say from the heart, thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. Notice Paul calls the gift of the Savior an unspeakable gift.

Unspeakable is the yardstick by which we measure our debt to God. Poets and scholars have tried to express in earthly phrases the vastness of this great gift, but at the very best they have only dimly expressed the extent of the gift of God's Son. One of them penned these lines, O could I speak the matchless worth, O could I sound the glory's forth which in the Savior shine.

If we had Gabriel's knowledge and language, we still could not completely tell the wonders of our Lord Jesus Christ and the depth of our obligation and debt to Him. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. It was unspeakable because God had only one Son.

How many children do you have? Now stop and consider. Which one of them would you gladly surrender to a painful death at the hands of brutal torturers to benefit an enemy who hated you bitterly? God had one Son, and He gave Him freely to such a death to win a few of His enemies to friendship. Not that God might be benefited, but that the enemies might be saved and blessed.

These are just a few of the reasons why those of us who are saved can't forget to praise Him for His great love. To us, it means the difference between being saved and lost, between going to heaven and going to hell. Once more, I present this loving Savior to you, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I ask you to trust Him for your eternal salvation.