How About Some Gratitude in our Attitude?
“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” I Thessalonians 5:18
Would you agree that there are some folks who need to put some “gratitude into their attitude”? There are too many people who believe that they are entitled to goods, services, and privileges as if they are deserving of those things. Folks want their “rights”. The U.S Declaration of Independence tells us that, as Americans, we have certain rights: “all men (and that includes women)…are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable (can’t be taken away) rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Our government was formed, and our Constitution was written to protect these rights. Now, as so many ungodly people are the current leaders of our nation, they desire to take away as many rights from the citizens of the U.S. as they can get away with, even attempting to take the rights away from parents to rear their own children in the way that the parents determine is right and good.
The Declaration of Independence was basically a mission statement of our government after battling Great Britain to establish our own government in an effort to keep us free from the tyranny of other nations. The Declaration applies to our nation as a whole, but also to each individual. However, I can find nowhere in scripture where God issued these rights to His creation. He created life at His prerogative, gave man free will, and gave him a choice to either go his own way or to follow and glorify the Lord. Thus, this choice, I suppose, was a “right”, but there are consequences to the choices that men and women make. For example, one has the right to reject Christ, but forfeits his or her place in heaven. The only right that God gave that I can find in scripture is found in the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22:14: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
That right is certainly something for which we should forever be grateful. Each day that one lives is a gift from God. Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 6:20 that we “are bought with a price”, thus we do not belong to ourselves, but to our Creator who gave us the right to be His child when we repent of our sin and trust Jesus as Lord and Savior and thus the right to eternal life with Him for all eternity. Everything we have comes from God. We are to be thankful and acknowledge that without God, we have nothing. Paul also reminds and encourages us to be thankful IN everything. He didn’t say FOR everything, because there are plenty of things that we would desire to have never experienced. Even so, when we go through tough times, we can be thankful that the Lord is going through those times with us.
Do you ever stop and thank God for the things you take for granted: a hot shower, a baby’s laugh, family, friends, the ability to get out of bed in the morning, the ability to work, your job, your income which allows you to have the things that you have, a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food on your table? Many times, when I step into the shower, I thank God for clean, running water, a water heater that heats it, the money to pay for it all, and the refreshment that comes from a warm shower after a hard day’s work. As they say, it is the little things in life, the things that we take for granted, that mean so much. Imagine not being able to take a shower when you are all hot and sweaty. Imagine going days without food. Imagine having to walk everywhere you go. We have SO much for which to be thankful.
Real life, liberty, and happiness can only be found in a right relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. What the world considers life, liberty, and happiness does not even compare to a life lived in freedom from the guilt of sin and lived in the joy of the Lord. As I see it, the right to life in our Declaration of Independence refers to the fact that no one has the right to take a life, but there are exceptions in the case of one who commits a heinous crime. The right to freedom is not absolute. One can’t do anything that adversely affects another, and no one can falsely imprison another. The right to pursue happiness also has its limitations. In God’s economy, no one can tell God that He is obligated to allow him or her to live as long as he or she desires. True freedom can only be in a relationship with the Lord, and God cares a lot more about our holiness than He does about our happiness.