Gratitude

Gratitude
We live our life mainly in two flavors, an attitude of gratitude for what we’ve received, or an attitude of resentment because we didn’t get what we feel we’re entitled to.
God freely gave his son that we might escape the consequences of our sinful and corrupt lives
Psychological research has demonstrated how and why people feel gratitude when they receive a gift like this.
1. Do we see the gift as as a thing of worth, a “pearl of great price”, or do we say, “who needs it, it’s just a piece of cheap junk?”
2. Is the gift costly to the giver or do we say, “What difference does it make to him, he can certainly easily afford it.”
3. Is the gift given to us for unselfish reasons, or does the giver have some secret cynical purpose in giving it to us, like is he just trying to make himself look good, or make us feel guilty?
4. Is the gift given to us gratuitously, that is with no obligation to do so, or given only because for some reason he has to.
Paul summed up god’s gift like this: God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When you hear about this you have heard the gospel. If hearing the gospel doesn’t impress you that much, if you laugh it off, or postpone thinking about it indefinitely, you are allowed to go off and make your own way in the world. If on the other hand, your heart is touched, if you feel grateful for what God did in sending his son, you may enter through the door of repentance and baptism into a state of salvation. The gift you receive will be an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you. While we may be quite impressed by our worthiness or lack of worthiness to receive this gift, weighing carefully, in the words of Elwood P. Dowd in the movie Harvey, the great big terrible things we’ve done and the great big wonderful things we’re going to do. Our hopes, our regrets, our loves, our hates. All very large. But God is not. He simply says "By grace you have been saved though faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God

A gift that is not received is a gift null and void. Whether you know it or not, hearing the gospel is the central test of your life, and I believe, the reason you were born.