Gratitude and Your Sanctification
Dr. John Snyder is the pastor of Christ Church New Albany, director of Media Gratiae, host of The Whole Counsel podcast, and author of multiple multimedia Bible studies including the Behold Your God series, Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges, and Behold Your God: Seeking Him Early.
In the following article, adapted from The Sermons of Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty, Dr. John Snyder describes the need for gratitude as we make progress in the Christian life.
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.
Colossians 2:6–7
it is impossible to really progress as a Christian without gratitude.
Imagine someone who reads about the attributes of God and devotes serious attention to applying them. He works hard to walk in and build on them, sink down roots into them, and grow mature and unmovable in his understanding of these truths. Yet something is lacking—He is not grateful to God. He has lost sight of the inestimable treasure he was given when he received Christ. The life that results may look very diligent and religious, but God is not pleased by it. Have you considered that it is impossible to really progress as a Christian without gratitude?
A word for those who hold Jesus Christ at what they consider a safe distance. Every truth you learn about God in the Scripture is a terrifying reality, isn’t it? You know Paul’s statement in Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who is against us?” Have you ever thought that you could flip that statement? If God is against you, what does it matter who is for you? You may begin to consider the weight of God’s majesty as you read this book. The things you are learning should frighten you. It is terrifying to think that the God whom you are attempting to ignore is at war with you. Will you stay where you are? Will you be paralyzed? Or will you press on to know Him, be captivated by His majestic mercy seen at the cross, lay down your weapons, and come to Him through His Son?
For the Christian, every attribute of God is something that is true about your God, Redeemer, Captain, Defender, Brother, and Friend.
For the Christian, every attribute of God is something that is true about your God, Redeemer, Captain, Defender, Brother, and Friend. Seeing that to be true, you ought to feel a deep gratitude. It is sweet to consider that the passage containing these four pictures of the Christian life is concluded with this happy word about gratitude.
Ask yourself this: Do the truths of Christianity make me grateful? Am I known as a grateful Christian by those who know me best? In Deuteronomy 28:47–48, God says to Israel through Moses, “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things.” Think about it. When we see the truths of God in Scripture, we should apply them. But if we’re grumbling and dissatisfied, God will hand us over to the old masters, to the old sins, and we will serve them miserably because they never give us what they promise. But as we see who God is, our hearts are moved to gratitude; we’re grateful to belong to a God like that.