The Alex McFarland Show-138-Why Gratitude?

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Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Gratitude. Why should we cultivate gratitude and a thankful spirit?

Hi, Alex McFarland here, and as you hear this, Thanksgiving may or may not be over. I'm not sure, but it is the week of Thanksgiving 2024, and I want to talk about what the Bible says regarding being grateful. And I was in a debate with an atheist at Black Hills State University in South Dakota some years ago, and during the Q&A in front of about 2,000 college students, this particular atheist said to me, well, God must be on some great cosmic ego trip, because he created the whole human race to worship him.

You know, what a narcissist. How conceited that the deity, if there is one, and this guy was an atheist, just wants people to worship him. And, you know, I was pondering how I might respond, and frankly praying, asking the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom, and I think God did give me wisdom, because I said, look, if everybody worshipped God, would that increase God or make God stronger or better? No, because God doesn't change. I mean, by definition and by scripture, we know that God is immutable. God doesn't change.

Malachi 3, I the Lord change not. And Hebrews 13 says Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So even if everybody worships God and praises his name, that wouldn't change God. On the flip side, even if everybody refused to praise God or acknowledge God or thank God, that would not diminish God. So the praise or the lack of praise to God doesn't change God. So it must be that the admonition to thank God and acknowledge God and praise God is for our own benefit. And so I said to the atheist and to the crowd of students, even in calling the human race to worship him, that's an act of love on God's part, because the most alive we'll ever be, the most whole and complete we'll ever be, is the closer we are to the one who's the giver of life, God. So in drawing in to the Lord and praising God, that's actually an act of love on God's part, to call us to praise him.

Now, I want to give you several reasons, and this list is not exhaustive, there are more reasons than this, but several reasons that we ought to praise God. And psychologists tell us that the more grateful we are, the more emotionally stable, psychologically healthy we are. Two things that are just so destructive to the human spirit and destructive to relationships. And really, jeopardizing our entire culture is entitlement and ingratitude. To be entitled and to think, well, the world owes me this or that, or I didn't get my fair shake, or I deserve better.

I deserve this or that. The entitlement mentality is one of the earmarks of someone who is spiritually and morally and really relationally immature. But then, ingratitude, not to appreciate things. Do you know, it's been said that those students that get free tuition are the most likely to drop out of school.

And you know, our government has wanted to just wholesale, really without the taxpayer's consent, forgive billions of dollars of student loans. And yet, when people don't have some skin in the game, they don't appreciate things. They don't attach a value to it.

Free tuition does not promote education, and it certainly doesn't promote maturity of character. So gratitude is a good thing. And to realize how blessed we are and to not feel entitled, that's a good thing. Now why do you think that we are to cultivate a spirit of gratitude?

Well, for one, point number one, it is God's will. First Thessalonians 5.18 says, quote, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. It is God's will that we are grateful.

Now, what should we be grateful for? Well, for life itself. I've counseled families, I've had teenagers say very smartly to their parents, well, I didn't ask to be born. That's true, none of us did, because how could we ask anything prior to our existence? Life begins at the moment of conception.

We're born, we grow up. Life is a gift from God. Why did God create us? Why were you given the blessing of life? Well, according to the Catechism, the chief end, or telios, or purpose of man, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God willed that you would exist.

Isn't that amazing? Almighty God didn't have to create you, and yet he did. And so we should be grateful for life. We should be grateful for health and mobility and to be ambulatory and to walk around. So it is God's will that we're grateful, and again, we are blessed. We are the beneficiaries of being grateful and showing praise to God.

Secondly, we are to cultivate a spirit of gratitude because God is good. Psalm 107, verse 1, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever. By the way, the Bible uses that verse in several places. In Psalm 107, four times that appears, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever. It's also in Psalm 136, verse 1.

It's in 1 Chronicles 16, 34, which says essentially the same thing as Psalm 107, verse 1. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. Very often when we pray, we bring our petitions and requests to God. First of all, dear Lord, help me do this, or please provide that.

You know, that's very understandable. And yet, one of the most important ways to begin our prayer life is to praise God for his nature, for who he is, and to say, before we rush in with even repentance and our asking for forgiveness, as important as that is, and as quick as God is to forgive us, praise his name, we need to thank God for who he is. Lord, thank you for being the eternal God.

Thank you that you do not change. Thank you that you do not... James 1.17, God says he doesn't change like shifting shadows. Isn't it good that we can depend on the character of God? He is righteous. He is holy. But he is merciful. And he's full of grace. And he is eager to pardon us and forgive us. So it's good to show gratitude for the nature and character and the essence of God. In fact, God is so good and so loving that he sent his son Jesus to be our Savior. And Jesus does love you. Aren't you glad of that? And he is as close by as a prayer.

And the Lord Jesus is faithful. Well, we've got to take a brief break, but we're going to come back. We'll talk more about why we should be grateful.

The first two reasons? Because gratitude on the part of the believer is God's will, and God is good. And we'll talk more about this when we come back. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert.

Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. You know, at Christmas time, you think about how grateful you are for the past year. And I share a letter that we just got a teenage girl that was in one of our camps.

She said, Mr. McFarland, I've never read a book for more than five minutes. But since going to your biblical worldview camp last summer, I read my Bible 45 minutes every day. Praise God. And as Christmas time comes, I want to say thank you to all the people who pray and financially support our ministry as we call people to Christ and youth to serve God and country.

But what about you? Do you know Christ? You know, Jesus is as close by as a prayer. And if you need help in your walk with the Lord or encouragement, you can go to my website, which is Alex McFarland dot com.

And there's a tab there. What does God say about my relationship with him? In the meantime, stand strong, be bold. Thank you for your prayers and support. And in the new year, let's do great things for the sake of the gospel.

He's been called trusted, truthful and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. We're talking about gratitude. In the first segment, we said that we're to be grateful, the Bible tells us, because God's will for us is that we grow in our relationship with him as we praise him and show gratitude. Secondly, because God is good.

Thirdly, we should cultivate a grateful heart and be intentional about that and really think. And I think it's important to be careful to delineate the ways God has been so good to us. Maybe you can think back even now about ways that he has protected you. He's provided for you. He's given you strength to get through a situation. He's given you wisdom and guidance. Maybe God's even protected you from things that at the moment you felt disappointed.

But in retrospect, you realize God was wisely, mercifully shielding you from a relationship or something that would have ultimately been detrimental. But the third reason to be grateful and to really, as the old song says, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will amaze you what the Lord has done. Number three, gratitude is commanded and expected by our Maker. Colossians 3.17 says, 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. The implication is that God expects us to be grateful. Ephesians 5.20 says, give thanks to God the Father for everything.

Isn't that amazing? And yes, we are to be grateful. That's why, don't forget before meal, whether you're alone or whether you're with family, bow your heads and pray.

And thank God. Some people say the blessing or they say grace. We in restaurants, out in public, we say the blessing. Not to be showy or anything like that, but I don't want to deny the Lord in anything. And many a time, we've been out and perhaps the server would say, I'm so glad that you said grace before the meal.

You know, we don't see that all the time. We're to be grateful because the blessings of life are all from God. That beautiful sunset that you saw, the fragrance of a flower that you experienced, the smile of a stranger, just the parking place near the building in the rain so you didn't have all that far to run. I mean, God shows his grace to us all day, every day. He really does. The fourth reason to cultivate a heart of gratitude is because it will enhance your prayer life.

Isn't that something? Being grateful. You'll realize how faithful God is, how he is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. Colossians 4 verse 2 says, Devote yourselves to pray, being watchful and thankful. Really, the more you are grateful to God, the more you'll be close to God, the greater intimacy and power in your prayer life. You know, Luke 18 talks, it begins, and Luke 18 one says that we ought to always pray and not give up.

And then it has a story of a woman that is very fervent and persistent in seeking something from a human judge or adjudicator. And Jesus goes on and he basically says if fallen people know how to do right by somebody, how much more does a holy God know how to do right and deal not only justly but mercifully with somebody? Gratitude will keep us close to God. And there will be times in life, and I'm sure you know these times already, that you need to get ahold of heaven in a hurry.

Listen, any of us, we're only one phone call away from our world being turned upside down. And there are times that you need to have heaven on speed dial. Well, practice that by communing with the Lord all day every day and cultivating that gratitude and that praise that He is due. You know, the Bible asks the question, you know, oh, that men would give thanks to God. Why do we not praise Him as we ought to? Well, it can be forgetfulness, spiritual amnesia. It can be just sin, ingratitude, and to not really be appreciative to our faithful Savior.

That's sin. Number five, we should cultivate a heart of gratitude because everything God is doing or allowing in your life is ultimately good and ultimately for your good. Every now and then I've had people say, you know, well God, you know, God hasn't come through for me or, you know, I got a raw deal or something like that. But James 1 17 says, Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

I quoted this a moment ago. So, look, there are things in life that are not good. But the beautiful thing about a sovereign providential God is, if we allow it, He can weave it into things for us that are good.

And of course the very, very famous verse that spells this out is Romans 8 28, For we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. Now, not all things are good. In fact, some things are tragic. Some things are heartbreaking. Some things are just downright rotten.

But the beautiful thing about this, it's not this Pollyanna, incurable optimist position that denies the reality of evil. Look, cancer is bad. Heartbreak. Betrayal. Divorce. Adultery. Violence. Terrorism. Drug abuse.

Drug fatalities. There are a lot of things that are objectively evil. But when we put our life, our present, our past, our future, in the hands of a sovereign God who is above circumstances but yet able to intervene within circumstances, ultimately God will work it for good. Now, two words.

We've gone over these many times. Proximate and ultimate. Proximate means something in close proximity, right here, right now. And there are things that are a proximate evil or something bad, but yet God ultimately, with His power, His wisdom, His mercy, His benevolence, God will ultimately—we have this promise—ultimately work everything for the good.

As C.S. Lewis would say, the goodest good, the best good. And when we say, God, I don't want this or that, Lewis said, and I think he was right, sometimes we're asking God to love us less, not more.

Do you know what? It's completely appropriate to try to work things out for the best, but even when things come along that make us sad for the moment, we simply say, God, I don't know what to do, I don't understand, but I'm trusting you. As Charles Spurgeon said, we can trust His character. Spurgeon would say, and I've quoted it many times, don't doubt in the dark things God has plainly told you or promised you in the light.

We praise Him because everything He's doing, or even allowing, God has promised He'll ultimately work it for our good. Stay tuned. I'm grateful for all of you listening, and we're going to come back with more promises about gratitude from God's Word after this brief break.

Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Alex McFarland, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you in the next one. Thanks for listening.

Thank you for your support. Learn more about this at AlexMcFarland.com. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here, and we're talking about gratitude.

We're going to resume, and I've got two more points to share, but I want to say two things. I want to refer you to our website, AlexMcFarland.com. Please check out the calendar. A lot of great things going on in 2025 especially. We've got two citywide crusades, one in Berry, Alabama. We've got a citywide crusade in Carthage, Mississippi in the fall. We've got an event in Wichita, Kansas.

Please be in prayer. And also the COVE, the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina. I'll be there in July teaching the Book of Job, and then I'll be there again in early August with J. Warner Wallace. Will Graham has asked us to do a session on apologetics and biblical worldview.

The website is theCOVE.org. I was just up there a few days ago for a board meeting, and it's going to be phenomenal. And please register and please support these events in prayer and with your presence as well. We also have our seven summer youth camps next summer.

1,200 kids will be in our camps learning biblical worldview. And so as the year draws to a close, please consider supporting financially and partnering with us. Every day, seven days a week, we're on radio and television throughout the world.

And then every week of the year, I'm on tour. Our staff, we're preaching and, as we always say, and we give God the glory, evangelizing the lost and equipping the saved. So if you give online at alexmcfarland.com, or you can mail a check in to P.O.

Box 485, Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. Thank you for enabling us. Every year, I give God the praise. We see roughly 7,500 to 8,000 people saved throughout America and beyond.

We send them literature. So for standing with us in evangelization and equipping the church, we thank you. You know, we're talking about gratitude, being grateful. We have so much for which to thank God, for which to praise God.

The Bible has a lot to say about it. And I want to wrap up here in just a moment by a couple of more things to praise God for. And His Word. We are so grateful for the Bible. We should have a heart of gratitude to Almighty God because He has, in Scripture, shown us all things for life and godliness.

That's 2 Peter 1. It says that, quote, God has shown us all things pertaining to life and godliness. Think about how lost, how utterly in the dark we would be if we didn't have the Bible. And do you know Psalm 119? I wrote an entire book on Psalm 119.

Fascinating. As you may know, the longest chapter in the Bible. But Psalm 119, verse 62, says, At midnight I rise to thank you for your righteous judgments. Now, Psalm 119 is a tribute to the Bible, to the Word of God. And there are seven terms in Psalm 119 used to denote the Word of God, like testimonies, statutes, judgments, laws, scriptures, precepts, God's Word.

All right. We need to be thankful for the Bible. Like I said, verse 62, At midnight I rise to thank you. And then, Psalm 119, 164, see, there are 176 verses in Psalm 119, 22 stanzas of eight verses each. But it says, Seven times a day I praise you for your word, for your righteous laws.

Isn't that amazing? Seven times a day we should be thanking God for His Word that teaches us how to be saved, how to live. More good has come from the Bible than from any other book, and we need to praise God for it. But finally, I'll say this. Point number seven. We should have a heart of praise and gratitude to God.

Listen. Because gratitude down here is practice for the appreciation you'll show when you see Jesus face to face. Psalm 100, verse 4, Enter His gates with thanksgiving and praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name. See, we'll step into the presence of Christ one day.

I hope you're ready. I hope you're a believer. And as we always say, Jesus is as close by as a prayer. And get in the habit of being intentional, proactive, and very specific about thanking God. Thank God for your health. Thank God for transportation.

Thank God for a free America. Thank God for family members that we don't love enough, and we need to be very careful to thank God for others in our life. People are not a burden. People are a blessing. So practice down here praising God, because when we enter His presence, as the old gospel song says, face to face with Christ my Savior, the Bible says we will enter His gates with thanksgiving and praise.

So let's cultivate that habit down here. Isn't it good to be a part of the Church, to be a part of the family of God? I think of so many examples of when I've been able, as a traveling evangelist, to see the Church in Jerusalem, in Peru, in Africa, in Europe. One Sunday morning in inner city Chicago, when we were traveling as part of our 50 states in 50 days tour, we hit town about 7am and we stopped.

There was a park. We were kind of in a not-so-great part of town. And we got out our nine-member team to pray. And as we said, Amen, we opened our eyes and there was a man standing there. And he said, Hey, you guys must be Christians, right?

And we were like, Yeah. He said, Well, I pastor a storefront church. Would you please come to my church? So 20 minutes later, we're in this storefront Chicago church in the inner city.

And there are prostitutes and drug dealers and homeless people singing praise to God, singing Amazing Grace. And they called me up to give a word and to preach. And the beautiful thing was, we didn't even know these people, and yet we were family.

Why? Because we had Jesus in common. So many things I could say. But as we close out, I want to be very intentional to praise God for a dear Christian brother, T.A. Wall. If you've ever interacted with our ministry, you've met T.A.

Wall. T.A., for 15 years, was our bookkeeper. And just this morning, T.A. went to be with the Lord. T.A. Wall, I think about this. About 12 years ago, I was in Oxford, Mississippi, preaching at a church.

T.A. called me, and he called me like three times, so I felt like I'd better pick up. And I'm waiting for the pastor to introduce me, but I whispered, I said, Hey, is everything okay? He said, Well, we have about $2,200 in invoices. And I said, Okay. He said, We have $1,600 in the bank. And I whispered, and I said, I'll cover it, T.A., don't worry.

He goes, Well, I just thought, you know, you better pray. And at that point, we had no staff. It was just me and T.A. and Angie. And little by little, the ministry would grow. And there would be times when I was discouraged, and I said, You know, maybe I just need to get a job or something.

And T.A. would say, No, Alex, God's called you to be an evangelist, and this is going to grow, and this is going to work. And it did grow. And now we have five full-time employees, and besides myself, two part-time, dozens of volunteers. We're on every weekend hundreds of radio stations and television, and it's still a walk of faith. But I want to be on record, and I thank God for now the late T.A. Wall, 1957 to 2024. But humanly speaking, the growth and success of this ministry as much as anybody is due to the faithfulness of T.A.

Wall as our bookkeeper. But he's in heaven now, and we thank God for him. I thank God for each and every one of you. But if you take time, this week and always, there's so much for which we praise Jesus. And we praise him also for that great reunion day that lies ahead. So as I close, let me say this.

I feel like we're family, everybody listening. We all, if you're a believer, you're on your way to heaven, and we want to take as many people with us as we possibly can. So gratefully, joyfully, consistently, fruitfully, let's live for Jesus, praise his name, and show the gospel to everyone we possibly can. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404, or by calling 1-877-Yes-God-1. That's 1-877-Yes-God-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.