Producing thankfulness to God

You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. (2 Cor 9:11)

Honesty alert: These words have been hard to craft and harder to write. I don't know where God, by His Spirit, is pressing you, but my guess is these thoughts may strike close to home. Please know, I mean no offense. I am writing these thoughts as a challenge primarily to myself. If however, God chooses to use my words to probe your heart, I make no apologies for Him.

It did not begin this past Wednesday, but that was definitely a crescendo of sorts for me. A couple of brothers and I are working through Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. The week's chapter was on unthankfulness. Entering our study time, my mind was on the myriad of ways that we (I) presume on God. We are thankful for the obvious stuff (new job, good doctor report, repairing a relationship) and even some times for difficult stuff (walking with us through loss or tragedy, closing a door that may have let to seriously poor choices, spiritually disciplining us so we can grow in Christ). But my mind was filled with the hundreds of things we get each day and simply assume they are ours, almost by right (life, food, electricity, heat, health, any job, educational opportunity, freedom to worship, freedom to pray, police and fire protection, loving families, loving friends, strong churches, huge amounts of Christian literature, the Bible in English and on and on)

This where our discussion started, but God lead us to ask the question: If I really presume on some (or all) of these things, if I don't spend as much time thanking God after He answers my prayer as I do pleading with Him in desperate need, where is my real trust in the provision of these things? To make this extremely personal, God has recently given me two opportunities to preach His Word to His people. I have desperately pleaded with Him to give me the right words to say and that He would use those words to affect His people. Weeks of prayers like that. Yet when the sermons were done, didn't God deserve more than a token thank you? Where was my overwhelming gratitude that He delivered on His promises? Where was the shear humility knowing you've done something way above your own ability?

The sad reality that dawned on me Wednesday was that maybe I wasn't as God dependent as I thought I was. Oh, the prayers were real, and I knew (and know) that my sermons are useless without God's gracious intervention. At best I can convert dry bones to corpses, which isn't much of an improvement (see Ezk 37) Yet my unthankfulness showed that at my core, I crafted the sermon, I got to the church, I spoke the words, I demonstrated proper emotions, I responded in appropriate humility and I took in constructive feedback. What broke my heart was that I was at the core of it all. Not God, not Christ, not the Spirit.

Now, sitting here five days later, I'm still asking God what this all means. In one way, the Holy Spirit has pulled back the curtain for me to show me how black my soul really is.Any illusions I may have had about any intrinsic goodness in and of myself has been washed away. Yet, in that same glimpse behind the curtain stands the gospel. The love and grace and mercy of Christ has covered, removed and daily helps eradicate these core sin issues. Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!

One other question that has been rolling around since Wednesday is what do we do with 2 Cor 9:10-15. In six precious verses, Paul lays out the reality that the gospel and all other gifts He provides do not terminate on us. We are part of God's process, part of His economy. We are to see that everything He has given us not merely as ends, but as means to a better, more glorious end.

To God Alone be the Glory