Hosanna Restoration Church

Grateful people are obedient people, and obedient people have reason to be grateful! This is one of those perpetual motion things that God created. Gratefulness produces a desire to follow the rules, so to speak. Grateful people are more amiable or congenial if you prefer more friendly words that obedience. But truly, to obey is not really such a painful thing to do!

When we are thankful for something or someone, this in turn produces a reciprocal attitude. In other words, we reap what we sow. Doing unto others as we want them to do unto us is a good rule! So then, when someone is grateful and out of gratitude they do what would please another, their response is to provide more to be thankful for. This is especially true when it comes to giving thanks to God.

There was a time when I was speeding down the highway and had in fact fallen asleep as I was driving. It was the flashing lights in the mirror that woke me up. As I rolled out of the car, the first thing I said was thank you officer! He looked at me in surprise and so I explained that I thought he probably saved my life as I had been asleep at the wheel. My attitude of gratitude produced a kind response from him and he said he would just give me a warning as long as I would check into the motel up the road and get some sleep. Needless to say, I was thankful and happy to obey.

Scripture tells us that people who are forgiven much love much. When a person is truly grateful to God, it creates a desire to please Him. Obeying God is something that pleases God. When we obey God, He in turn gives us more to the grateful for.

If we look through Bible, we can see that whenever the people ceased to be thankful they also ceased to be obedient. In the case of Adam and Eve, they really did not know about being thankful. They only knew God and He was good. They really did not know how good they had it, until they failed to obey and things changed. I find it interesting that it was not until after Seth’s son was born that people began to call on the name of the Lord. It will be interesting to find out what prompted that. They knew about God before that, but the Bible is clear that it was at this point that men began to call upon Him.

I think there are lots of folks who know about God but are not grateful to God. I knew about God for a long time before I ever called on Him. I did not call because I had no real need for Him. I was not grateful and therefore I was not obedient. Any time we cease to be grateful it will produce problems. Husbands or wives who cease to be grateful for their marriage are headed for trouble. Ungrateful children will have problems. Ungrateful employees are headed for problems and cause problems. Think about the difference a grateful attitude can make. Then obey the principles that God has designed and see what He will do.