The Root of Ingratitude

Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21)

When gratitude springs up in the human heart toward God, he is magnified as the wealthy source of our blessing. He is acknowledged as giver and benefactor and therefore as glorious.

But when gratitude does not spring up in our hearts at God’s great goodness to us, it probably means that we don’t want to pay him a compliment; we don’t want to magnify him as our benefactor.

And there is a very good reason that human beings by nature do not want to magnify God with thanksgiving or glorify him as their benefactor. The reason is that it detracts from our own glory, and all people by nature love their own glory more than the glory of God.

At the root of all ingratitude is the love of one’s own greatness. For genuine gratitude admits that we are beneficiaries of an unearned bequest. We are cripples leaning on the cross-shaped crutch of Jesus Christ. We are paralytics living minute by minute in the iron lung of God’s mercy. We are children asleep in heaven’s stroller.

The natural person, apart from saving grace, hates to think of himself in these images: unworthy beneficiary, cripple, paralytic, child. They rob him of his glory by giving it all to God.

Therefore, while a man loves his own glory, and prizes his self-sufficiency, and hates to think of himself as sin-sick and helpless, he will never feel genuine gratitude to the true God and so will never magnify God as he ought, but only himself.

Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

Jesus did not come to minister to those who insist they are well. He demands something great: that we admit we are not great. This is bad news to the arrogant, but words of honey to those who have given up their charade of self-sufficiency and are seeking God.

John Piper 

A relationship for eternity

BIBLE MEDITATION:

He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. John 14:21

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A little boy fell out of bed and was crying. His mother came, picked him up, and said, “Honey, what’s wrong? How did you fall out of bed?” He said, “Well, I guess I went to sleep too close to where I got in.”

I think there are a lot of people who have done exactly that. They get into Christ and somehow they just seem to go to sleep right there. They say, “I’m saved and that’s it.” But friend, that’s not it. It’s just the beginning of a relationship that will last through all eternity.

ACTION POINT:

God wants to move you further into a knowledge of Himself. I don’t know about you, but I’m not satisfied with the status quo of my life. I want to go deep into the heart of Jesus. I desire the same for you.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

How to Magnify God

I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. (Psalm 69:30)

There are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.

When David says, “I will magnify God with thanksgiving,” he does not mean, “I will make a small God look bigger than he is.” He means, “I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is.”

We are not called to be microscopes. We are called to be telescopes. Christians are not called to be con-men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality, when they know the competitor’s product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is.

That’s why we exist, why we were saved, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.

This is what it means for a Christian to magnify God. But you can’t magnify what you haven’t seen or what you quickly forget.

Therefore, our first task is to see and to remember the greatness and goodness of God. So we pray to God, “Open the eyes of my heart!” (Ephesians 1:18), and we preach to our souls, “Soul, forget not all his benefits!” (Psalm 103:2).

John Piper 

Be prepared for battle

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. Having your conversation [behavior] honest among the Gentiles [unsaved]: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 1 Peter 2:11-12                                       

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The unsaved love to bad-mouth the church, and if you're a Bible believer, they especially love to lampoon and ridicule you. You must live a righteous, godly life—nothing in your heart and life of what the Bible calls here “fleshly lust.” Renounce that. Abstain from everything that’s wrong. Then embrace everything that’s right.

Since the fall of man, certain things war against our souls. The word “war” here isn’t the idea of hand-to-hand combat, but of a strategy, a conspiracy born in hell, my dear friend, that wars against your soul, the soul of your family, the soul of your church, and the soul of this nation.

We are at war with unseen forces from the very pit of hell. Peter warned the church, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). Be prepared for the battle. You must be absolutely and totally clean. I’m not talking sinless. None of us are. But to the best of your knowledge, there’s no unconfessed, unrepented of, willful sin in your life. A child of God ought to be as clean as the driven snow.

ACTION POINT:

Be mindful every day to live such a godly, clean, righteous, honest, forthright life, that even those who hate you will have to grudgingly admit there’s a difference about you.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Jesus Prays for Us

He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

It says that Christ is able to save to the uttermost — forever — since he always lives to make intercession for us. In other words, he would not be able to save us forever if he did not go on interceding for us forever.

This means our salvation is as secure as Christ’s priesthood is indestructible. This is why we needed a priest so much greater than any human priest. Christ’s deity and his resurrection from the dead secure his indestructible priesthood for us.

This means we should not talk about our salvation in static terms the way we often do — as if I did something once in an act of decision, and Christ did something once when he died and rose again, and that’s all there is to it. That’s not all there is to it.

This very day I am being saved by the eternal intercession of Jesus in heaven. Jesus is praying for us and that is essential to our salvation.

We are saved eternally by the eternal prayers (Romans 8:34) and advocacy (1 John 2:1) of Jesus in heaven as our High Priest. He prays for us and his prayers are answered because he prays perfectly on the basis of his perfect sacrifice.

John Piper 

A meeting with God

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek . Hebrews 6:19-20

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Today we have a new place to meet God one-on-one. In the Old Testament, that place was the Temple, and that temple had three parts: the outer court, the inner court, and the innermost court called the “Holy of Holies.” No ordinary person—only the high priest—could go in there, and he only once a year. God filled that inner sanctum with His presence.

The high priest, and only the high priest, would enter the Holy of Holies, lifting up a corner of the heavy veil and slipping under. Then he would make atonement for the people by sprinkling blood upon the Mercy Seat. If anyone went in without the blood, he met sudden death.

But when Jesus, the Lamb of God, was slain, all that changed. The heavy veil of the temple was torn in two at Jesus’ death, and it was torn from top to bottom so no one would think a human being had done it. By His death, Jesus was saying that no more animal sacrifices were necessary. Now, every believer can enter the Holy of Holies.

ACTION POINT:

Today we have a new “Holy of Holies.” Have you been there today? Meet with God in the inner sanctum of your heart.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Glorify God by Giving Thanks

It is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 4:15)

Gratitude to God is a joyful emotion. We have a sense of joyful indebtedness for his grace. So in a sense in the very emotion of gratitude, we are still the beneficiaries. But by its very nature, gratitude glorifies the giver. When we feel thankful, we acknowledge our need and God’s beneficence, God’s fullness, the riches of his glory.

Just like I humble myself and exalt the server in the restaurant when I say, “Thank you,” so I humble myself and exalt God when I feel gratitude to him. The difference, of course, is that I really am infinitely in debt to God for his grace, and everything he does for me is free and undeserved.

But the point is that gratitude glorifies the giver. It glorifies God. And this is Paul’s final goal in all his labors. Yes, his labors are for the sake of the church — the good of the church. But the church is not the highest goal. Listen again: “It is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.” All for your sake — for the glory of God!

The wonderful thing about the gospel is that the response it requires from us for God’s glory is also the response that is most natural and joyful; namely, thankfulness for grace. God’s all-supplying glory in giving and our humble gladness in receiving are not in competition. Joyful thankfulness glorifies God.

A life that gives glory to God for his grace and a life of deepest gladness are the same life. And what makes them one is thankfulness.

John Piper