True Gratitude — Basilea Schlink

Gratitude for God's Living Work

God lives and works today. Have we ever thanked him for this from the bottom of our hearts? Someone once said the way to receive is to give thanks and these words are especially true when it comes to experiencing the reality of God.

Today's meditation by Vassalia Schlenk can help our hearts to become thankful again and thankful people are happy and rich. When our hearts are full of gratitude towards a person who has done much good to us, we feel impelled to give him something in return.

True Gratitude Requires Sacrifice

We want to give him a precious gift, one that will cost us something. A couple of words of thanks are too little. Our thankful heart longs to be able to do more. We want to show our love by making a sacrifice and so a sacrifice belongs to true gratitude.

Responding to God's Undeserved Goodness

If this principle applies to human relationships, how much more should it apply to our relationship with God? For no one has ever done so much good to us as he has and no one has ever had less reason to be kind to our sinners.

When God nevertheless showers us with undeserved goodness, surely we must respond with an appropriate expression of our gratitude and this thank you can't be cheap. It has to cost us something.

The Leper Who Returned to Thank Jesus

In Luke chapter 17, we read about how Jesus healed the ten lepers. Verses 15 and 16 tell us,. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

When the leper turned back to thank Jesus, it cost him something. Surely his natural inclination must have been to hurry off to his family and loved ones. Neither would it have been easy for him to proclaim in front of all the Pharisees that he belonged to Jesus.

But he brought this sacrifice out of gratitude to Jesus.

The Lord is also waiting for our sacrifices of thanksgiving. He's waiting for us to take the next step to turn away from sinful paths or to bring him a certain sacrifice of money, gifts, people, or things.

Whatever we might want to hold on to, let's bring it to Jesus now as a sign of our true gratitude.

You have been listening to a program written by Basileus Schlenk of the Little Land of Canaan. To learn more about how God lives and works today, visit us at our website www .canaan .org. That's K-A-N-A-A-N dot org.

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