An Attitude Of Gratitude

God is so good, He loves to bestow His gifts upon His children. The Bible tells us that all good gifts come from God. If it’s good, then it’s from God.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

I know in my own life from time to time I’ve gotten complacent. This is easy to do in today’s hectic lifestyle, yet in a sense it’s a type of laziness. Complacency can come when you start to take things for granted. I have recently been reminded that I have so much to be grateful for, I can not afford this attitude, and none of us can in the body of Christ. I have had to repent for this and realize as the Word of God declares I am not my own, I have been bought with a price.

If you are in Christ, you have a lot to be thankful for. You have escaped eternal punishment and have received eternal life. If you feel that you can not be thankful for anything else, this one thing should be a starting point to all of your praise to God. He is worthy to be praised.

We truly are in the last days, and our time is short. Our ability to walk in the path God has given us to walk in can hinge on whether we receive God’s blessings. I believe receiving God’s blessings is greatly effected by our attitude of heart. If our attitude of heart is bad and we can’t receive God’s blessings because of this, how can we be a blessing to others? Lets look at some things that will help us, and give us encouragement to keep our attitude right. Understanding God’s will, will help us stay on the correct path. Knowing and understanding God’s will, will always be an essential step in our journey.

Faith is always thankful, you can see it clearly taught throughout the Word.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

People always want to know what God’s will is, well here it is in black and white. In everything give thanks, not for everything but in everything. This is God’s will.

The Apostle Paul was always giving thanks to God in and through every circumstance he came to be in. I believe this is one of the reasons for his great success. Faith is always thankful.

On the other side of the coin so to speak, unbelief is always ungrateful. The children of Israel were a good example of this. If you read about the wilderness experience the children of Israel went through, you will see that they were always complaining and grumbling.

1 Corinthians 10:10 nor murmur, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

Yet the word tells us to do all things without murmuring. Some translations say grumbling or complaining.

Philippians 2:14 Do all things without murmuring and disputing, 15. That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

One major way to squash unbelief is to keep your attitude grateful. A grateful attitude will always look to the positive and give God thanks. God is so gracious; He loves to bestow good gifts upon His children. Many times, we are not receptive to his gifts. We cut off the very blessing God wants us to have by our attitude of being ungrateful. It is all too easy to fall into this trap when we are surrounded by negative stuff.

It is difficult for God to be gracious to those who are not thankful for what they already have. Why would God give us more when we don’t appreciate the things we have already been given? Have you ever given somebody something that you considered valuable and they just took it, like its no big deal? You may have saved up to purchase this present, and really put a lot of thought into it. After this you probably would not go to any trouble to repeat this experience, at least as long as they have this attitude, would you? Most people would not. Do you think God is any different? Is He going to keep pouring out His blessings on a bunch of ingrate children? We can see throughout the Word of God that the answer is no. I believe this greatly effects our ability to receive.

I’d like to take a look at the parable of the talents. Because of space I’m going to just quote portions of it. The Scripture reference is Matthew 25:14-30. I encourage you to look it up and read it for yourself.