Gratitude for God

It struck me today that a religion is a lot about gratitude. Check out this passage from 2 Corinthians 4:15:

"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."

It strikes me that everything that we get from God is given through his great mercy, rather than as a result of anything that we could have possibly achieved. Paul knew this fact very well during his teaching ministry, and the second letter to the church at Corinth is filled with references to this fact. His mission was to tell men about the death and resurrection of Christ, but his mission was only to be completed when God's glory was revealed. His task was to get people to look upwards, in awe of the Lord, rather than at his human frame. But thanksgiving is definitely a part of this process...

Gratitude is more than just saying "Thankyou", and other phrases that can just come out rather than truly be meant, or that are expressed as a form of custom. I guess gratitude is therefore a form of delight, something that we feel and act upon in a spontaneous manner, not involving massive amounts of willpower. But again the term should go deeper. We can delight in a gift, but still be ungrateful to the giver if we do not use it as they intended (or even not use it at all). Gratitude is therefore something that you feel towards someone, a bond that develops as a result of their gift to you.

Gratitude must be related to grace, as is described in the quotation that I used at the beginning of the section. You feel gratitude toward the one that has been gracious to you. I guess that this is a lot like people saying "Thankyou" even when it is not necessary. These are the people that through their kind words and appreciation move the exchange of a gift beyond a mere formal transaction. The grace has not been paid for, and therefore we are grateful for that gift to us. But in the example of the person saying "Thankyou", the words also indicate a sense of humility as we happily meet the needs of those that honour us. When grace penetrates our hearts, it is transmitted back to God as gratitude.

Finally, an excerpt from a sermon by John Piper:

Hudson Taylor, who endured great hardships and tragedies in his lifelong mission work in China, said when he was old, "I never made a sacrifice." What he meant was that along the path of self-denying service you experience so much joyful gratitude for God's sustaining grace that, whatever you forsake to buy that pearl, it is as if there were no sacrifice at all. Therefore, a life that gives glory to God for his grace and a life of deepest gladness are always the same life. And what makes them one is gratitude.