04/03/2024
This morning the title of the devotional that I read was "Love Grows as Gratitude Grows" and the author’s message was that as God answers prayer our gratitude grows which causes our love to deepen, then, as a result, our prayers themselves increase. Quite honestly I have never considered this type of relationship, between answered prayer, gratitude and love, to be true. My love for God has always been founded and centered on how powerful His love is for me, and that it is so intense, this incredible love He has for me, that He would sacrifice His only begotten son to redeem me. My love for God isn’t because I am grateful for this (although I am), it is a reflection of the love that He has for me.
So this morning I have been considering answered prayer, how thankful I am for it, and how it plays into the love I have for my Heavenly Father. I read Psalm 116 (from which our scripture verses today are taken) which is the story of answered prayer. This Psalm has four verses that highlight the process of Faith, Prayer, the Answer, and our Thanksgiving.
“Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.”
Psalms 116:2 KJV
“Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.”
Psalms 116:4 KJV
“Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”
Psalms 116:7 KJV
“I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.”
Psalms 116:17 KJV
I struggled as I read the devotional message this morning.
In Psalm 116 I couldn't find a dependence between answered prayer, gratitude, and love. Instead, what I read was an account of how prayers offered in faith would be answered, that God answers them because He loves us, that our souls are comforted by His answer, and, finally, how we offer our thanks for His answer. Being grateful, or thankful, isn’t the same as loving, although we might be grateful for the love we receive.
Many times when I am struggling through a thought such as this I will look for parallels between the relationship God seeks with us and the ones we have between each other. God created us in His image and therefore He instilled in us a model of Himself not only physically but also mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. So, this morning I looked back on the evolution of love between myself and my wife. I saw the steps of our courtship as being Infatuation, endearment, love, and then the giving of ourselves to one another. The giving, that includes gratitude, was something we did as a result of our love and not to acquire it.
In the relationship with our children we don't buy their love either. I worked hard and was able to provide a great many things for my children as they were growing up and although they love me, it isn't because of the things I give them... It is because I love them without question.
My mother was raised in absolute poverty. Her father worked himself to death on his farm in North Carolina so that they wouldn't starve. She tells many stories about him and his sacrifices, but I remember one in particular is the story of a Christmas in which there were no gifts.
Her father came shivering into their small log cabin on Christmas morning with an arm full of firewood and said that he thought he saw Santa’s footprints in the snow outside, and it looked like something was in each of them. She and her brothers and sisters quickly put on their shoes and ran out of the cabin... In each of the several footprints was a single piece of hard penny candy. I could still see the love in her eyes as she spoke of her father, and although she was 90 years old at the time, I recognized the look on her face as being the same look of love she must have had as a little girl.
Love doesn't grow out of gratitude, but the gifts for which we are grateful, come as a result of the love that prompted them. The rest of my mother's Christmas story about the candy came years later when her mother told of how my grandfather wept at the lack of gifts they were able to give the children, and how he walked several miles that Christmas Eve in a very bad snow storm so that he could spend the little bit of money they had on his children, and Santa would have those few pieces of candy to leave for them..... You see, the love of her father came first. And then came the sacrifice, and gifts.
God's love for us came first too. We love Him because He first loved us, and the prayers He answers aren't meant to buy our affection... They are answered because He loves us. You hear it in David's words in Psalm 116, you hear it in the teaching of Jesus, you hear it in the words of the Apostle John, and you should hear it in your own voice when you pray... "Our Father who art in heaven..."
Listen to The gospel of John as God loves, and then gives…
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for loving us as you do, and thank you for your Son Jesus Christ who loves us just as you do. Thank you for giving Him, and all your many gifts to us out of the amazing love you have for us, and not to simply buy our love and affection for yourself. Help us Lord to understand that we receive because of love, and that we don’t love because we receive. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who has, and does, and will always love us. Show us your mercy and grace for all eternity, and allow us to love you, not for the gift of eternal life we receive, and value so greatly, but for that eternal instant, that spark of light, when we first realized your love for us, and we loved you back. Praised be your name Abba for the love you have given us, and for our ability to love you and others. You have given us the ability to love, and this is your greatest glory, and we are thankful and grateful to you for it.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
1 John 4:7-10 ESV
Amen
Rich Forbes