The First Thanksgiving, by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris

While perusing the Scriptures and putting together some thoughts for a Thanksgiving sermon, it struck me that there are certain sinful attitudes that just can’t get along with thankfulness.

If we could know what these are and be aware of their tendency toward zapping the gratefulness out of our lives, then perhaps we’d be set on our way to more thankful living.

Here are the three ‘Thanksgiving-zapping’ attitudes:

• Pride

The proud individual does not give thanks.  He presumes to be above it.  The act of thanksgiving is essentially an exercise in humility.

• Self-Centeredness

The self-centered individual either fails to take notice of that for which he should be thankful or thinks that he deserved it anyways.  Either way, there’s no thanks.

• Unhappiness

The unhappy individual is not thankful, else their spirit would be lifted.  Think about it.  Have you ever been really thankful and really unhappy simultaneously.  I seriously doubt it.

This all fits rather well with a quote from John Piper in his book, Future Grace.  There he defines gratitude as,

“…a humble, happy response to the good will of someone who has done or tried to do you a favor.”

You can see the backbone of my post in Piper’s words: “humble, happy response.”

• The humble man is not proud.
• The happy man is obviously not unhappy.
• Somewhat less obvious, but still relevant, is that the self-centered man is not responsive.  Instead, he’s in his own little world.

[HT: had a little help from this post from this guy]