What are you grateful for?

As we begin the month of November, a most appropriate question is: What are you grateful for? I, for one, am grateful for the words of Jesus in Luke 6:35. In this verse He speaks of God and says: “He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked!” I am grateful for these words, because if anyone has been ungrateful, it is me. The list of things I have complained about or taken for granted is pretty much an endless list. It includes, but is not limited to: my air conditioned car; my lovely home; my wonderful wife; this great nation we call America; food on the table; other people on the road; people in my family, church, and community. As I consider my many, many blessings, I should be among the most grateful people in the world, but often I am not. Oh, how grateful I am that God is kind to the ungrateful. And even more, I am grateful that God is kind to the wicked. The wicked are not just some terrorists or godless killers. The wicked includes the likes of me. I look at my life and the sin I commit and I shake my head in disgust. I echo the words of the Apostle Paul: I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature…for what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing…what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:18, 19, 25).

Yes, as this November rolls around, I am most grateful for these words of Jesus: “He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked!” If you’re anything like me, I suspect that these words can bring a great deal of comfort to you as well. May God bless you, as by His grace you overcome your ungratefulness and wickedness with gratitude and thanksgiving.

“Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17)