GRATITUDE
Gratitude is
an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us
can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.
Signposts.
Christianity Today, v. 39, n. 13.
I would
maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is
happiness doubled by wonder.
G.K. Chesterton
We ought to
give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because
it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope
of our eternal country.
C.S. Lewis
It is
probable that in most of us the spiritual life is impoverished and stunted
because we give so little place to gratitude. It is more important to thank God
for blessings received than to pray for them beforehand. For that
forward-looking prayer, though right as an expression of dependence upon God,
is still self-centered in part, at least, of its interest; there is something
we hope to gain by our prayer. But the backward-looking act of thanksgiving is
quite free from this. In itself it is quite selfless. Thus it is akin to love.
All our love to God is in response to his love for us; it never starts on our
side. "We love, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
William Temple
3000 Quotations on Christian Themes.
Christianity Today, v. 32, n. 17.
Thankfulness
to God is a recognition that God in His goodness and faithfulness has provided
for us and cared for us, both physically and spiritually. It is a recognition that we are totally
dependent upon Him; that all that we are and have comes from God.
Jerry Bridges
The Practice of Godliness NavPress, 1996, p.
100. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com.
All rights reserved.
As
the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, so likewise a
cheerful thanksgiver.
John Boys
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 276.
Gratitude is
the return justly required from the objects of His beneficence; yet it is often
withheld from our great Benefactor simply because His goodness is so constant
and so abundant. It is lightly esteemed because
it is exercised toward us in the common course of events. It is not felt because we daily experience
it.
A.W. Pink
The Attributes of God, Baker Book House, p.
60.
The
problem with being thankful is not so much one of manners as it is of alertness
to the facts, that is, simply having open eyes to what
is true. And it is true that you and I deserve nothing good. No, more than
that, we deserve everything bad – an eternity in hell.
Jim Elliff
But
I Don’t Feel Thankful, Christian Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org.
Used by Permission.
This one is
so simple that we miss it. Why aren’t we more grateful? There are many answers
to that question, but this one is central: we aren’t grateful because we’ve
never asked God to give us a grateful heart. By nature we are covetous, greedy,
grasping and unhappy. Left to ourselves, we will be just like that rich fool.
Generosity isn’t our natural impulse. We aren’t born giving; we’re born
getting. Gratitude is not the inborn language of the heart.
Ray
Pritchard
Keep Believing Ministries, The Sin No One Will Admit, http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/1992-08-16-The-Sin-No-One-Will-Admit.
Is it not
lamentable that men will never thank God for the countless blessings He confers
upon them, and then remember Him only to complain of the evils which they have
brought upon themselves, and which are never half so great as their misconduct
deserves?
John
Broadus
Christian Joy.
An unthankful
and complaining spirit is an abiding sin against God, and a cause of almost
continual unhappiness; and yet how common such a spirit is. How prone we seem
to be to forget the good that life knows, and remember and brood over its evil
– to forget its joys, and think only of its sorrows – to forget thankfulness,
and remember only to complain.
John
Broadus
Christian Joy.
From a heart
overflowing with gratitude, we will want to honor and glorify God by gratefully
offering back to Him the many good gifts He has bestowed on us. We will not go
to church to be entertained, to see "what we can get out of it" for
our own private gratification, but rather to praise and worship the triune God
of grace and glory
Author Unknown
The art of
thanksgiving is thanksliving.
Author Unknown
Our favorite
attitude should be gratitude.
Author Unknown
The things we
take for granted are dreams to many people.
Author Unknown
Thanksgiving
gives effect to prayer, and frees from anxious carefulness by making all God's
dealings matter for praise, not merely for resignation, much less murmuring. Peace
is the companion of thanksgiving.
Author
Unknown
Jamieson, Fausset
and Brown Commentary on the Whole Bible, Philippians 4:6.
Would you
know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays the most or fasts the
most, it is not he who lives the most, but it is he who is always thankful to
God, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart
always ready to praise God for it.
William Law
Preoccupied
with ourselves, we have lost the grace of being thankful. It is sad to live in a world where there is
no one to thank because we have ourselves become the cause and source of all
good things.
John Hannah
To God be the Glory,
Crossway, 2000, p. 11.
It must be an
odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public
institutions often see this odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone
in the institution seems to be thankful "in general." It's very
strange. It's a little like being married in general.
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
When we bless
God for mercies, we usually prolong them.
When we bless God for miseries, we usually end them. Praise is the honey of life which a devout
heart extracts from every bloom of providence and grace.
C.H. Spurgeon
Thankfulness
flows out of a heart that is rooted in Christ. If Christ is the Lord of our
lives, we will live in Him, be built up in Him, and be strengthened in Him.
Ultimately we will find ourselves overflowing with thankfulness to Him for all
that He has done on our behalf.
Karl Graustein
Excerpted from: Growing Up Christian, P&R, 2005, p.
126.
Used by Permission.
A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he
never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.
Henry Ward Beecher
Memory...keeps
gratitude fresh and…gratitude keeps faith fruitful.
Dale Ralph Davis
1 Samuel, Christian Focus Publications, p.
77.
For if [a
Christian] cannot thank and praise God as well in calamities and sufferings as
in prosperity and happiness, he is as far from the piety of a Christian as he
that only loves them that love him is from the charity of a Christian. For to
thank God only for such things as you like is no more a proper act of piety
than to believe only what you see is an act of faith. Resignation and thanksgiving to God are only
acts of piety when they are acts of faith, trust and confidence in the divine
goodness.
William Law
A thankful heart is one of the primary identifying
characteristics of a believer. It stands in stark contrast to pride,
selfishness, and worry. And it helps fortify the believer’s trust in the Lord
and reliance of His provision, even in the toughest times. No matter how choppy
the seas become, a believer’s heart is buoyed by constant praise and
gratefulness to the Lord
John MacArthur
Grace
to You, Newsletter, March 2009, © 1969-2008. www.gty.org, Grace to You. All
rights reserved. Used by permission.
An evidence
that our will has been broken is that we begin to thank God for that which once
seemed so bitter, knowing that His will is good and that, in His time and in
His way, He is able to make the most bitter waters sweet.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Place of Quiet Rest, Moody, 2000, p. 70.