The Christian Grace of Thankfulness (Colossians 3:15)...Continued from page 4

The forms of service will vary according to our individual gifts and calling. But if we are grateful to God, we shall be busy in His service, ministering to others in the name of our Saviour, and always seeking as we minister to share with them the Gospel of His redeeming love.

After years of bondage, a slave was purchased by a stranger and set free. Falling down at the man's feet, he sobbed, "I will be your slave till death."

Thankfulness is the spring of the noblest service. That is why Christian service is the finest service in the world.

Our thankfulness to God will also express itself in giving. Wherever you find a grateful heart, you are sure to find a generous hand.

A fine Christian layman called me one afternoon. "God has been especially good to me this year," he explained, "and I want to share that goodness with others." He then asked me to recommend several Christian ministries which I considered worthy of his support.

"Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name," said the psalmist; "bring an offering, and come into his courts!" (Psa. 96:8). How comfortable would you feel to think that God measures your gratitude to Him by the gifts you place on the offering plate each week? He does exactly that.

The key to balanced church budgets, increased missionary support, and larger benevolences does not lie in bingo, bazaars, and bake sales; nor in high-pressure financial campaigns; nor in a legalistic emphasis upon the duty of tithing. It lies rather in the cultivation of the Christian grace of thankfulness.

Her gratitude for all that Jesus meant to her prompted Mary of Bethany to anoint Him with her jar of ointment, a gift that cost the equivalent of a laborer's yearly wages. Paul boasted of the Gentile Christians of Macedonia who, though desperately poor themselves, out of gratitude for their spiritual blessings, eagerly gave beyond their means to help the poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Poor and affluent alike give joyously and generously when their hearts are filled with gratitude to God.

Still another characteristic of the thankful spirit is contentment.

We are inclined to think that contentment depends on things and circumstances. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If that were the case, those who have the greatest abundance and suffer the least misfortune would be the happiest. But often these very people are miserable and are some of the worst grumblers and complainers.

In his classic Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, a devout Christian, put these words into the mouth of his hero, "All our discontents spring from the want to thankfulness for what we have."

Fanny Crosby, writer of many popular gospel songs, was stricken with blindness at six weeks of age. When she was just a child of 8, she wrote these lines:

"Oh what a happy soul am I!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be;
How many blessings I enjoy
That others people don't!
To weep and sigh because I'm blind,
I cannot, and I won't."

"Bless the Lord,' O my soul, and forget not all His benefits" (Psa. 103:2). Grateful Christians don't grumble. They find a happy contentment in their experiences of God's goodness and love.

The crowning feature of Christian thankfulness is the desire for deeper fellowship with God.

It is natural when a friend has done a great kindness to us, that we should draw still closer to him with greater affection and devotion. The love he has shown to us stimulates and intensifies our love for him, so that our friendship becomes richer, more intimate, more precious than ever.

God created us for fellowship with Himself. Nothing in the Genesis story is so beautiful as the immediacy and intimacy of Adam's original relationship with God. And nothing is so dark and tragic as the disruption of that relationship through sin. The rest of the Bible records the gradual unfolding of God's amazing plan to restore that relationship through Christ.

When we think of all the goodness and mercy God has shown to us who deserve nothing but His wrath and condemnation, the faithfulness of His providential care, the gifts without number He has lavished upon us, and above all, the salvation He has purchased for us through the death of His own dear Son, how can we fail, if we are truly grateful Christians, to place Him at the center of our hearts and lives?

Surely, more than anything else, we shall long to know Him better and to live in glad and loving fellowship with Him forever.

"Would you know," asked William Law the mystic, "who is the greatest saint? He is not the man who does most, or even prays most. He is the man who is most thankful."

Judged by that test, what kind of Christian are you?