Giving Thanks, a Christmas Adventure – Day Eight

 

OH, yes, ingratitude messes with our vision. For more kudzu, we need only keep reading in Romans. We’ll see what happens when they’re no longer thankful, broken down right here in Holy Scripture, beginning in verse twenty-five, “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.” 

They began to serve the creature, rather than the Creator. We’re all servants. The only choice we get is who to serve. The cure to escape the domination of our it’s all about me nature is living thanksgiving, to live in acknowledgement of God, to recognize that He never stops giving, and never stop expressing gratitude for His gifts.

The ugly picture Romans gives us of mankind is one of maturing ingratitude. It begins with the refusal to acknowledge HIM and it only grows worse…Romans 1:28, “And because they didn’t see fit to acknowledge God, so they were given over to a depraved mind.”

Oh, boy, now we not only have futile thinking, but we’re moving on into a depraved mind. What in the world does this look like?  Depraved: deviating from what is moral, right, proper or good; unwholesome; a perverted sense of loyalty. Futile thinking that comes as a result of not honoring and thanking God, left unchecked, leads to depravity.

Listen to Romans 1.28 in the Message: Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives.  

I don’t think anyone chooses verse 28 as their life verse! Little boy, little girl, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a vicious mean-spirited murderous lying cheating atheist. Or, how about this? I want to be a passionless, cold church woman with plenty knowledge of Jesus but very little love flowing through me. Silly, right? No one would choose such lives, not on purpose, anyway. But, refusing to acknowledge the good and perfect God and preferring ourselves is a choice. We’ll think we’ve chosen freedom— only to find that we’re slaves to our flesh. There is no greater tyrant than being in bondage to our own wants! Ask an addict. But don’t look for one addicted to tangible substances and miss the one looking at you in the mirror. We are all one moment away from the pull of acknowledging ourselves rather than God, and heading down the slippery slope. Likewise, we’re each one moment away from consecration, thanksgiving, and fellowship, divine fellowship.

That great gulf we mentioned earlier, the vast gulf between the knowledge of God and the acknowledgment of God, I’m sure we can all readily agree that the outcome of it is hell itself for the pagan. Oh, that we could get the truth planted deep in our hearts that it is also the ever-present thief robbing believers of the promise of abundant life.

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