Romans 1:21 (NKJV) 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
I am going to look more into releasing our potential, but I always like to spend time around the Thanksgiving holiday talking about the power and importance of a lifestyle flavored with a thankful heart.
Particularly for a Christian, I believe thanksgiving is not just a response to good things. A heart of thanksgiving to God for what he has done will draw the power of God to produce even more. I believe thanksgiving takes faith to another level.
As important as I think the positive side of thanksgiving is, today’s verse is speaking about the negative of being unthankful. Verse 21 tells us that he is talking about people who know God. That is you and me assuming we are born again. Though they knew him there were two things they did not do. They did not glorify him as God.
That is interesting. We know that God is well able to do anything. We know that Jesus came to die for us so we could have an eternity in heaven with God. That is pretty important in the grand scheme of things. Yet the people in this verse did not treat him like he was God. I believe we need to take a good look at ourselves and see if we are treating the God who saved us like the ruler of the universe who is the source of our life and worthy of all honor and praise.
How is it that they were not treating him like God? They were not thankful. They refused to thank him for what he had done in their lives. They focused instead on what they felt he had not done. They focused on what they thought they deserved when in truth they, and we, deserve nothing but eternal separation from God. Grace obtained a wonderful eternity for us. When we do not cultivate a thankful heart, we can forget that very important detail. I like to remind myself and the people I speak to that in 10000 years we will not be too concerned with where we lived, how much money we had but we will be very happy we knew Jesus as Lord.
This verse says that those who were unthankful, “ became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” The word futile means fruitless. The Greek word means to render passive. When we do not honor God nor give him thanks, our thinking becomes fruitless. It becomes passive in that it does not produce anything worthwhile. Our hearts, our mind and emotions, become darkened until we no longer see how fortunate we are to be children of God. We forget the eternal because we are so caught up in the temporal. I do not know about you, but that is not how I want to be.
I think we can all agree that the opposite of a thankful people is a grumbling or complaining people. Is there anything worse than someone who complains about everything? Nothing is good enough for this kind of person. When something good happens, they are always looking for the dark cloud inside the silver lining. Often, we do that because we have been disappointed. We feel that so many things have not worked out that the current thing will be no different. Just as thankfulness draws good things, grumbling draws bad things because we are honoring the devil. I think it will help us if we look at the source of grumbling. If we can recognize the grumble, it will help us shut it off and replace it with thanksgiving before it produces a negative crop.
No group of people ever developed the art of grumbling better than the Israelites in the wilderness. God had done many mighty miracles for them. He had delivered them from Egyptian bondage. He had destroyed the Egyptian army who could have taken them back or killed them. He gave them food, water and shelter in the wilderness. He even caused their shoes to last the whole time they were traveling. You would think that they would have been the most thankful people in the world. They were not. Sometimes, when God has done the most for us, we may find ourselves grumbling more than when we are in the midst of trouble.
What were their grumbles all about? We can identify 4 categories. I think if we take an objective look at ourselves, we will find we tend to be the same. These four categories are the why grumble, the entitlement grumble, the panic grumble, and the good old days grumble. Let us take a look at them so we will recognize them when they rear their ugly heads.
The why grumble is seen in Exodus 14:10-12.
Exodus 14:10-12 (NKJV) 10 And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the LORD. 11 Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?’ For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”
The people of Israel were in hard bondage in Egypt. They were starved, whipped and worked to death. Their firstborn sons had been taken from them and cast into the Nile to die. God through Moses had delivered them by great power. They were headed to a land of promise. At the first sign of trouble, they began to grumble against Moses.
“Why did you bring us out hear to die. Why didn’t you leave us alone.” Why me Lord? Have you ever asked that? I am ashamed to say I have. When we start to give in to that question, we forget what God has done for us. We get focused on the present problem. The other way we might express this grumble is, “It’s just not fair that this should happen to me.” What should the Israelites have done?
At this point they were faced with the Egyptian army behind them and the Red Sea blocking their path. They were so focused on the fact that they had no escape that they seemed to forget the 10 mighty plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians. He moved in such great power that the Egyptians did not just let Israel leave. They begged them to leave. If God could do that, why would they think he could not deal with their current situation?
Sometimes we can begin to feel sorry for ourselves. We begin to ask, “Why me? Why do things never seem to work out for me?” We focus on the fact that life is not fair. Why do others seem to get things that I do not? How can we turn that around? We must open our mouths, our hearts and our minds and begin to give God thanks for what he has done. If you cannot think of anything else, begin with the fact that Jesus died for you and you will spend eternity with him. I know it is not always as easy as it sounds. We have not gotten to eternity yet. We are still dealing with the “rotten here and now.” But we will all get to eternity eventually.
Part of the source of the “why grumble” is our need to understand. God will give you insight and wisdom when you need it. Nevertheless we must remember that he is God and treat him accordingly. He understands. Trust him. Sometimes you could not understand if he told you. Sometimes you would cause problems if you knew what he was doing. No matter what the reason, let your whys be on the back burner and move your thanksgiving to the front. Understanding follows trust. It will come if you need it.
Let the Thanksgiving holiday be a time to stop the “why grumble in its tracks.” You will find that you have a great deal to be thankful for and that heart of thanksgiving will draw good things to your life. Next time we will deal with the other three grumbles.
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