9/3/21

Being grateful by Gary Rose

 

Just a couple of cartoon characters, dancing for joy and a caption encouraging us to be grateful for everything. Simple, but quite profound message, though. IF we have our minds focused on the good in our lives, why shouldn’t be be grateful ( for everything )? We should be grateful because no matter how bad things seem, they could always be worse. We could lose our health, our wealth, our mental abilities, our friends, our families and so on. But if are Christians, we have something to be grateful for that the world will never fully understand.


The Apostle Paul said…


1 Corinthians 15 ( World English Bible )

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,

52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

54 But when this corruptible will have put on incorruption, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.


And the answer to this mystery is: Whether we live or die, God has granted to us a victory over death and sin- through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our lives will have meaning, no matter what may happen to us. In a way, God grants to us a sort of invincibility, so that our work and labor for the LORD will not be in vain. Why? Because Jesus’ life was not in vain- his sacrifice made us free from sin and death.


And, therefore ( verse 58, above ) let us continue to be grateful and to thank the one who has made our hope of heaven possible- Jesus Christ our LORD.


PS. Dancing with Snoopy is optional.