Repay? Or be Thankful?

A friend shared that she struggles to be thankful. She explains that years of being cared for by God without a great deal of stress seems to cause her to take His care for granted. We are supposed to be thankful. It is part of worship and my friend agrees with verses like these:

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

That said, I was a bit surprised at the first line in today’s devotional reading: “Gratitude is a joyful emotion for worship but a dangerous motive for obedience.” Piper adds, “How can we not be thankful when we owe everything to God?”

He went on to explain that gratitude is a dangerous motive for obedience as it tends to be expressed in debtor’s terms like, “God has done so much for me… I owe Him everything…” But is that possible? How could anyone pay Him back for the grace He has given us?

“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:35–36)

It is impossible because all we have already belongs to Him. Do I think of my life and possessions that way? I cannot even take another breath — being alive is his gift. Having a comfortable home, and a remarkable church and church family, and children and their children, and abilities and all else is because of God’s goodness. All belongs to Him ad well. I’ve only my gratitude.

Lately becoming aware of helplessness and weakness without Him, and aware that all strength to do His will is due to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Christians say, “I did this for God” or “You need to obey Him” as if they do not understand what Jesus said:

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:3–5)

This is clear, and even the abiding is His work because apart from Him I cannot abide or would not want to. Like those who resist all that God requires, unless I’m filled with the Spirit of God and yielded to His leading, I am just like them. How can I pay anything back to God unless He does His work in my heart? And even then, it is never enough.

One thought: I do owe love to God and to others, yet even being able to love is also a gift by grace, meaning we do not earn or deserve it or payback God for it…

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7–12)

PRAY: Jesus, I’ve never thought about paying You back. It sounds too much like arrogance, as if I have the ability and means in myself to do it. Keep me from having a wrong motive pressing me into anything but loving obedience.

Who rules my heart?

 

Today’s devotional begins with this statement: “Someday Christ will return to earth to reign in His Kingdom. In the meantime, He rules in the hearts of those who love Him.”

Really? What about those days when I don’t feel like praying? Or having devotions? Or in dismay see my Christian friends living as if they did not believe in Jesus? Or see that in myself?

We are supposed to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) and live for the will of God, like Jesus said, “Not my will but thine be done.” Yet we often pray asking God to help us with what we want to do. How few the days when I bow before God and ask His leading, looking to Him to plot my day, rather than making my plan and asking Him to endorse it, to give me what I need to make my plan happen.

Yet He gives clues that this black and white separation of my will and His is more fuzzy than I think. One of them is this OT verse: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9) God gave me an example yesterday. After church, I didn’t feel like going home other than to change and be outside. We wound up looking at something our son is hoping to purchase, a whim on our part. Then we were surprised when he and his fiancée showed up. They were surprised too, especially when it turned out that what he needed to do could only go ahead because we happened to be there. Coincidence? Or was ‘my plan’ actually God directing my steps? Not much doubt that He was involved.

MacArthur puts emphasis on human choices in the matter of conversion to Christ and on following Him. He points to God’s invitation but also the importance of our repentance and commitment. However, I remember the day Jesus ‘invited’ me into His kingdom and would describe it more as Him opening the door and ushering me through it. I don’t recall considering whether to walk in or not, nor do I remember any sense of repentance and commitment. Walking through that door seemed the most natural thing to do, as if it were my will to do it without any fuss or sense of turning from ‘sin and self’ to God.

Others may be more aware of making a ‘decision for Christ’ but this was not my experience. For me, this was as normal as taking the next breath. He reached out His hand and I took it without thinking, much like a child would when walking with daddy and coming to a place in a path that required his help. Making choices to take His hand often happens, but that came later.

Could this be a way to present the good news? For me, it was my own sin that messed up my plans. I needed help to get past it, beyond it, somehow away from sin’s ability to mess with me. This is often how I see sin in the lives of others. It is like a third party, ruining their lives and convincing them that they can fix their problems if they just ‘smarten up’ or ‘try harder’ when the problem can only be solved by taking the hand of Jesus and letting Him lead them. He may not remove all the obstacles, but He will make it possible to stop listening to the sin that so easily causes all the missteps.

What is my responsibility in this? Every day Jesus holds out His hand and I merely need to take hold of it. Sometimes the path will be clear, or not, but with Him leading, it has a purpose and a destination and I can trust Him to make sense of it. Faith is not always black and white. Nor is it walking that path by sight, by seeing where He is taking me. It is simply walking in trust that the One who holds my hand knows where we are going.

Jesus, Your Word is filled with commands that seem like choices I’m to make, yet I’m seeing them more as signals that tell me I’m trusting You and on the path. If things like repentance, commitment, and obedience are not there, then I’d better grab Your hand and let You put me where I need to be. I cannot do that myself and every time I try, I wind up focused on my will instead of Yours, on trying to make it happen without holding tight to You. The reality is that You are the Savior; I cannot do this without You.

THINK: Is there a difference between telling others to repent from their sin and telling them to put their hand in Jesus’ hand letting Him lead them through life? Does my gospel message come across as ‘turn or burn’ or as ‘trust and follow’?