January 2, 2014 | Thanks!

Gratitude changes everything

Starting this next week, I am blessed to begin a series on gratitude – the attitude that makes all of life better. Preparing for this series has been amazingly transformative. I have been appalled to discover how much I resemble humanity as described by Mark Twain:

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” – Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson

God has picked me up, as the psalm so brilliantly summarized, “out of the miry clay and planted my feet on the king’s highway.” He has blessed me with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.” And yet, I have discovered anew just how ungrateful I am most of the time. I have also subsequently uncovered how such churlishness makes me ineffective in all of life.

By contrast, gratitude makes one healthier and stronger. It doesn’t just bless the Lord who deserves our thanks; it changes one for greater success:

“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 NASB

As a pun-loving friend of mine remarked, “This attitude of gratitude shifts one’s latitude to a place of beatitude.” Even as we groan, we note that he is absolutely correct. Therefore, I ask you all to pray with me that those who study this series will be changed into more thankful children of God.

[Editor’s note: The Gratitude series begins at Frisco Bible Church January 5 and will be available at www.friscobible.com beginning early the following week. It will air on All The Difference radio and www.allthedifference.us in mid Spring 2014.]