"The Power Of Gratitude" Brian Loveless Sermon
"The Power Of Gratitude"
Brian Loveless Sermon from November 2, 2014 at
Calvary Baptist Church, Grand Prairie, Texas.
Turn
your bibles if you would to the Gospel of Luke Chapter 17. So good to be with you today; I really look
forward to this time of being together.
I heard a story this week I want
to share with you. I heard about
a large dog who walked into a butcher shop carrying a purse in his mouth. The
dog walks right up to the meat counter and the butcher looks down kind of
puzzled. Here's this dog with a purse in its mouth and the Butcher’s kind of
amused. He says, “Hey boy, what is it?
Did you come to get some meat? Come to get some meat for your master?” The
dog barks. “Alright! Well you came to the right place. What kind of meat do you
want? We've got some ham. We've got some chicken. We've got some beef.” And the
dog barks right on beef. “Okay we got some beef for you! How much beef you want? A half-pound, a
pound...” Dog barks right on pound. “OK,
a pound!” Butcher wraps it all up and right
at that moment the dog drops its little purse.
Butcher comes around the counter, he’s still amused, and he picks it up,
gets out the right amount of money, and gives the dog the meat. The dog puts the package of meat in his mouth,
turns around, and walks out the door.
The butcher’s absolutely puzzled, bemused, like “I’ve got to find out
what the story is here” so he follows behind the dog. A few blocks in the dog turns into a particular
door of an apartment complex, walks up the stairs, butcher is right behind him.
Comes up to one particular door and just starts scratching on the door. The
owner opens up the door, and standing in the doorway, starts to berate this dog. Angrily, stomping his feet just giving that
dog what for. The dog has its tail down,
head tucked, and then the butcher steps up and he says, “Look buddy, I’m sorry,
I don't know what in the world this is all about but this dog is amazing! This
dog just came in and ordered from me for you, and brought it back. This is the most intelligent dog I've ever
seen in my life!” The guy looks at him
and says “Intelligent?! This is the third time this week he's forgotten his key!”
I
want to talk to you this morning about gratitude. This is November, right? We all know it's going to be messages on
Thanksgiving, on being grateful, on praising God. You're going to hear sermons
and lessons about don't get distracted by all the stuff. Don't let the stress get to you of family coming
in, meals and all, football, all the different things that are going to be
going on. Don't let that interrupt the fact that God's been good to you, that
you should say thanks. We all know this is the month you're going to be hearing
that. Last night, I thought it was hilarious. We had our Trunk or Treat here at
Calvary. I really appreciate our Kid City team Charles and Melynn Bowen putting
that on and all the people who came and worked it. Had a really good group of little kids come
out their costumes, their parents, and the whole thing. One thing that I saw repeated over and over again
is Jenny and I were standing there at our trunk. Again and again some set of
parents would come up, or mom would come up with the little kid in their cute
little outfit, they hold up their bucket.
I put the candy and the kids just like focused on “Candy! Candy! Candy!”
and they turn and try to run and mom’s like “say thank you, say thank you!”
Right? That probably repeated itself a dozen times, and kid’s like “forget
thank you, man. I got some candy. I'm
out!”
Listen,
we kind of expect November to be that from the pulpit: “say thank you, say
thank you!” We’re supposed to be grateful.
This
month I want to bring you a series, God-willing, called The Power of Gratitude.
I'm really coming to believe y'all gratitude is an indescribably powerful tool
in the life of a follower of Jesus Christ.
Listen, gratitude will not only
change your spiritual life, it'll change your day-to-day work life, home life,
family life, married life, raising-kids life.
Gratitude is incredibly powerful when you harness the power of it. It will change your existence! Here's what I hope to do this morning, before
we get to our text, if gratitude is this incredibly powerful thing. If being grateful can change every aspect of
your life, I think it's very important that the very outset to ask the question:
what is gratitude? We all have a general notion of what it is.
What
is gratitude? I want to give you a definition that I think is fantastic, it's
biblical, and then we're going to start unpacking it and then we're going to
get into our text. “Gratitude is the
feeling of happiness you feel towards somebody who has shown you some undeserved
kindness.” Let’s read that again, “gratitude
is the feeling of happiness you feel towards somebody who has shown you some
undeserved kindness.” First of all gratitude, is a feeling. You can say the words
“thank you” with no gratitude in your heart.
How often when Christmas rolls around; we've all gotten those gifts. There's some distant relative, like Uncle
Bob, got that gift and it's a fine-looking pair of socks and you look up and
you say “thank you” but no gratitude in your heart. Gratitude is a feeling. It
is more than words. It is that feeling that arises uncoerced in your heart. You
can't will it to happen, you can't make it happen. Gratitude is this feeling
that comes up inside of you under certain stimuli, alright? Gratitude is a
feeling.
Number
two: gratitude is a feeling toward some body. In other words, gratitude is more
than delighting in a gift. It's more than receiving something and saying “I
really needed this, I love this, I want this” and walking away with your
pleasure purely in the gift. Gratitude is a feeling of happiness directed
towards some body; directed toward a person for giving you something good. It looks
from the gift to the giver and feels something toward them.
Here's
a third thing: gratitude is a feeling towards somebody who has shown you some
undeserved kindness. Let me ask you a question and I want to raise your hand if
this is true. How many of you every week
or every month, however your pay schedule goes, when you receive your check in
the mail from your employer, how many of you sit down and pen them a thank you
card every week or month and send it off to them? Anyone like that? “Thank you for sending my
salary, thank you for sending my check.” Right, I wouldn't recommend it because
here's the thing, “thank you for sending my salary. I feel it is truly
undeserved.” Don't do that, don't do that! “I don't know why in the world
you're paying me for this.” Don’t write
that letter! Because here’s the thing, the emotion of gratitude generally rises
in our heart in direct proportion to how undeserved a gift is. Wages are earned,
you did something, and they sent something back. You scratch their back, they scratched yours.
That doesn't generally illicit a lot of gratitude. It's when somebody does something for you that
is above and beyond, that you feel you don't deserve, that you feel was unexpected,
and this feeling arises toward them. Gratitude
is a feeling of happiness you feel towards somebody who has shown you some undeserved
kindness. That's what it is. One thing I
want to note, gratitude grows in the soil of grace. Gratitude is all tied up with
grace; undeserved favor. A gift you didn't have coming, you didn't see it coming,
and when it comes your heart wells up with gratitude. That's what gratitude is.
Now
let's pose this question for the rest of our time together, and this is
foundational, this is for the rest of the month. That's what gratitude is, why is it so
important? How can that feeling, welling up within your heart, be so powerful
that it changes your day-to-day life?
Our
text gives us some answers to those questions. Here's what we're going to find;
Jesus Christ and his journey to the cross are about to collide. His earthly ministry
is winding down. He is on his way to
Jerusalem where he knows the cross and suffering await Him. The Jews had this tremendous
sense of national pride and also hatred toward the mixed-race they called the
Samaritans. You see some of the captivity 586 BC, 722 BC, when Israel was
conquered and carted off by the Assyrians and ruined by the Babylonians, the
Jews that were left behind. Many times
the poorest of the poor those Jews intermarried with Gentiles and became the
race of the Samaritans. The Jews hated the Samaritans, were disgusted by the Samaritans,
would literally like go around their territory to not have to interact with
them.
Well
in our text Jesus, with no such bigotry, with no such feelings in His heart because
he knew what every man and woman was like truly, is going to head right into
the middle of it.
Luke 17 (KJV)
11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he
passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him
ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master,
have mercy on us.
Now
if you’ve been with us any time at all, if you study the Bible any time at all,
or kind of the culture surrounding what was going on in the Gospels, you've
already probably heard sermons and lessons on leprosy. We won't do an in-depth
medical study of leprosy, we will only say and note it was the worst disease of
the day. The physical ramifications were
horrendous. Leprosy would attack the body leaving sores, missing fingers,
missing toes, damaged limbs. In many cases the initial pain of leprosy gave way
to something even more terrible than that, a loss of sensation in nerve endings
so that literally this person, who didn't feel pain, could hurt themselves,
could injure themselves. There have been cases of literally knocking off body
parts because they just didn't feel it!
The disease could take 30 years or more to run its course and in that
time span as I mentioned entire limbs could fall off. Beth Moore, and I know many of you ladies in
particular have enjoyed one or more of her studies, Beth Moore in her book “Jesus
The One And Only” tells of an occasion that she had to be near a modern-day
leper colony. Her desire was to go in
there and minister to those individuals. Beth Moore writes in that book that
literally three times she tried to walk into this leper colony, she tried to
minister to those people, but the smell of that place was so powerful, it made
her so violently ill, she'd walk away and compose herself, and come back and
try again. The wave of the smell of that
place, that rotting flesh, that degeneration, would hit her and overwhelm her.
This leper not only was facing the terrible pain of their disease, they were
separated from society. They literally had to stay in a distance by the law; they
had to shout out “unclean” when anyone came near them, and I want to tell you,
listen, the leper was a walking, talking offense to all of your senses. To look at them was to be terrified; to smell
them was to be nauseated, to hear them in many cases was to be afraid or
annoyed. There's these ten individuals
that shout out to Jesus in the words of our text “Master, Jesus, have mercy on
us!”
Look
at verse 14
14 And when he saw them, he
said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that,
as they went [Where? To the priests!], they were cleansed.
Oh listen! This is an unusual deal. The local precinct in
that day had duties other than leading worship on the Sabbath day. They were also
something of a health official for the community. If a person was somehow healed
of leprosy, and normally that was a miraculous healing because there was no
cure, that individual was to go to the priest who would inspect the body, test for
the complete removal of the disease, and announce the person healed. And if they were announced clean, if they
were announced healed, they could go back and kiss their wife again! They can see their kids! I'm sure years have passed and they've grown
up. They can hug their kids close again.
They could reenter society. So Jesus did it differently, did a little backwards.
He didn't say all right you're healed now go show yourself to the priest, He
said go show yourself to the priest. It
took this measure of faith; it took this measure of trust.
We don't see anything but the degenerated limbs, we don't feel anything but the
same old pain and separation, nothing's happened at all in our lives! That's where they were. They had to muster
the faith to turn and walk and go before they saw or felt anything! That's exactly what they did and on their way
to see the priests they started feeling something. They look down, and listen;
a hand that had fallen off had started to regrow. Limbs that were white and
deformed gradually regained their color and their original form. That's about the time the screaming started I
suspect. These ten individuals understood. Jesus, the healer, the coming King,
has done something miraculous for us! They're
singing, and they’re jumping, and they’re screaming, and they’re laughing. Verse 15:
15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned
back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks:
and he was a Samaritan.
Notice how the text
points that out? Hey human beings! All
bigoted divisions you want to make with human beings, you're all the same in my
sight and this individual is the only one who came back, this Samaritan. This is noteworthy
17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten
cleansed? but where are the nine?
18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God,
save [except] this stranger [this Samaritan].
19 And he said unto him [and we’ll talk a little more about this in a
minute], Arise, go thy way: thy faith
hath made thee whole.
Isn’t
that good?! Can we stop right there and
be like that's a fantastic story, right?
Why is gratitude so important? Why is gratitude so incredibly,
life-changingly powerful? May I say first and foremost my friends, gratitude
brings glory to God! Gratitude brings glory to God! Ever hear that saying
around Christmas we’re like, “what do you get the person that has everything?” Right? Sometimes we feel that way! We're like “I don't even know what to buy
them anymore! They've got everything
they kind of want. I don't really know what to purchase for them”; particularly
when a person is very, very wealthy. What
do you buy the person that has everything? Well here's a deeper question: what
can you possibly give to God? He created it all! Listen there's nothing you can give Him that He
didn't make, right? There's nothing you
can add to Him for he is complete, He is in no way diminished, He's in no way
lacking. What do you give the God who has
it all? My friend I want to tell you
this, I still don't understand it, but I glory in it. Yu and I have the ability
to give Almighty God something that He cherishes, something that is valuable to
Him, something that moves Him, something that delights Him. We have the ability
to give Him glory out of grateful hearts. Listen to some scripture. Can I get an
amen?
Hebrews
13 listen to this:
15 By him [by Christ] therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. [Let’s praise Him
it says.]
16 But to do
good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well
pleased.
Oh
man, when you come to Him... Remember when He said to Jesus; “this is my Son in
whom I am well pleased.” Of course He did! That was Christ! That was His Son! When you and I, Christian, come before
Almighty God and out of grateful hearts we say “Lord thank You for this home, thank
You for this job, thank You for air in my lungs and a beating heart, God thank
You for my church, and thank You for my salvation...” it brings glory to God and
it delights Him!
So
does this: Proverbs 15
8 The sacrifice of the wicked
is an abomination to the Lord [in other words all the
stuff you can bring Him, He doesn’t want it]: but the prayer of the
upright is his delight.
Psalm
50
23 Whoso offereth
praise [sayeth the
Lord] glorifieth me....
You
know what you and I were invented for y'all? You know why He created all that
is in those first few chapters of Genesis? For His glory! Everything that was
created was created to enjoy Him, and display Him, to drink Him in, and then
say to the world “come drink with me! Come see a God who's better than anything
He could give you!” The first reason we
give glory to God, the first reason we have gratitude, is it does bring Him
glory. Gratitude brings glory to God. Nine of these men... by the way did you
notice this? Nine of these guys didn't come back to thank God for their healing
and Jesus noticed. Nine of them went on about their business, and the Son of
God noted that they never came back and said thank you.
Think
it matters to Him? Yeah.
Here’s the second thing:
gratitude brings glory to God. If there's one point of this whole series that
has been all over my heart, and in my mind, and just has overwhelmed me in the
past week in particular, it is this one - not only does gratitude bring glory
to God, gratitude brings God to you!
Gratitude brings God to you! All
10 of these guys got physical healing but one of them got something more. Look
at verse 19:
19 And he said
unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
You
can literally translate that Greek “made you whole” as “your faith has saved
you”. The normal, New Testament use for
that Greek phrase means “saved you from sin”. This dude not only got healed physically
he came back and said “Oh Jesus, thank You! God thank You!” Jesus said you know what? Your faith has made
you whole, not only are you healed physically, son, you're healed spiritually.
You just became a Christian; you just became a son of the Living God! Well
here's the question: why did gratitude makes such a difference? I mean if I’m
just reading this without any background or context, it seems like Jesus is
like “you know what? These other guys are ungrateful so now you have your
physical healing but spiritually you're going to stay dead. You had some
gratitude therefore I will reward your good work by saving your soul.” Friend
that's not it at all! Why did gratitude
make such a difference? Oh please get this, please get this - because
ingratitude robs you of God. Ingratitude steals God from you. God is there He
loves you, He wants you, the very word grace means “God stoops”. He's ready to receive you, He has everything in
the world for you, and ingratitude will make you turn away from Him and never
even know that He was there. Ingratitude
makes you blind to God's glory. You will worship the gift and ignore the Giver!
Maybe
that's what happened here? Why did these
nine guys walk away? I think maybe they were so overwhelmed by the fact that
they were healed that's all they cared about. They saw the gift and they
worshipped the gift, but they missed the Giver!
Friends, ooooh dare I camp out here for a minute? How often, every day, we worship the gift and
forget the Giver. We try to find life in
our work, in our salary, in our hobbies, we try to find life and the arms of
some human being, we try to find all of our satisfaction in making other people
think we're special and lovely and attractive at all... We find life in the gifts God has given us,
we try, and try, and try, and we forget all about the One who gave those gifts
to us. Listen to me! God's gifts without
God, God's gifts minus God, will break your heart. You worship human love it will break your heart. Parents listen to me, you worship your kids,
you make them your reason for existence, you make them the reason you get up in
the morning, and it’ll break your heart! You make money, and power, and
satisfaction, and prestige, and other people's opinion of you your god. You
worship that gift and subtract out the Giver, it'll ruin you! It will take you to the bottom. It'll give you a hellish existence. You know what hell is all about? Thirst, thirst, gnashing teeth, frustration. Some
of you are in here this morning and you don’t have leprosy. The truth is you
have air in your lungs, and a healthy heart that beats and you got kids, and a
home, and you've got love, and you live in America, and the truth is you're
miserable. You're so thirsty, you're so
frustrated. Could it be you have tried to make a god out of a gift and you're
missing the Giver? That's what happened
to them. Listen, ingratitude makes you blind to God's glory, ingratitude makes
you deaf to God's call.
What
was Jesus saying when He healed them? What was Jesus saying to these men in no uncertain
terms? He was saying “men do you understand
that if I can command the leprosy out of your body, I must be sent from God,
and you understand if God loves you enough to command that out of your body,
that He loves you and wants you, and wants a relationship with you?” In other words the gift was this massive sign;
glaring, neon sign to say look at the Giver!
He's here, He loves you! But I wonder if at least some of those nine
completely missed God because here was their attitude: I deserve this! I never
deserved to get sick in the first place! God sent this to me! God made me sick!
God took away my family! God took away my kids! God took away the function of
my body and the fact that now I've got it back, God didn't do some glorious
thing to me! I had this coming. I deserved it! Listen, you may be here today
and somewhere... proud people don't say
thank you. Somewhere in the back of your
heart, maybe not so far back, you're not all that interested in God. Because
truthfully you think the good things you've got were by chance, were some
occasion of fate, or were earned by your hard work. Friend, let me tell you something,
listen to me, every good thing you've got came down from God.
Here's
what we I think we get prone to think, okay?
The normal stuff of life like breathing, walking, talking, family, is
just a given, right? I deserve that! I'm a human being. I didn't ask to be born,
I'm here. That's just basic stuff, and if that's taken away from me, it's God's
fault for doing it to me, and He
did that to me! And when He gives me like
exceptional blessings I’ll pause and say thank You. I think when we get to heaven we're going to
find out sin has so cursed this world, sin has so devoured us as human beings
before we know Christ, every good thing that's ever touched your life was a
divine intervention by Jesus Christ. Every time you breathe clean air, it was
Jesus saying “send him clean air this morning!” Every time you hug your kids it
was Jesus saying “don't let the devil have victory and steal away their family,
let them have this time with their family.” God sending down gifts every moment
every day to people who curse Him and hate Him. Every good thing you and I have
came down from the Father of Lights, the Bible says, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning.
Gratitude
brings God to you. And here's the last thought on this: gratitude brings glory to
God, gratitude brings God to you, gratitude brings joy and perspective to your
life. I've wondered at times why the Bible, in the Old Testament, had so much to
say about murmuring. Murmuring. That’s
an odd word isn't it? Murmuring. It
sounds odd, I like to say it though. Murmuring. You find in the Old Testament like
they murmured, right? I picture murmuring as... I mean it sounds like the word
is. It's like onomatopoeia; it’s a sound word.
I think it sounds like [grumble grumble grumble sound] right? It sounds
like what is – murmuring. What is that?
“I don't know why I have to go through this.
I don’t know why my mate’s acting like this. I don't want my kids to act like... My boss is a jerk, and this is terrible, and it
shouldn't be my lot in life. God why did
you to let this happen to me...” Murmuring. You read the Old Testament and you read about
the Jews. You read about them murmuring and you don't see God having the
reaction we think He'd have; which is kind of like a “Oh you guys! When are you
going to get this straight and be grateful?”
No! The bible says they murmured
and He killed them. Right? I'm not trying to overstate it here. I don’t want to put too fine a point on it. They
murmured and He sends like snakes. Seems
like a classic case of divine overreaction, right? Like I complain, He sent
snakes; bad. Here's what you find if you
truly read the Old Testament, and the New Testament, murmuring was this tremendous
indicator of where their heart was. Murmuring was a light on the dashboard, lit
up, saying “you’re empty of God.
Something needs to be checked here.”
Murmuring says “I deserve the good things I've gotten in life, and I
don't trust God with the bad things that have touched my life. God give me the gifts, I don't want you the Giver.”
Oh God if you read the Old Testament, and you really know what its saying,
it'll break your heart! God we want bread, we want water, we want love, we want
life... we don't want You. We hate You.
Keep sending gifts though. Keep on bringing them down and You stay away.
Friend, I know there's nobody in this auditorium that would probably open up
your window tomorrow and say those words to God. You understand.... Oh this
convicts me! Right down my toes it convicts me!
Ingratitude,
not connecting the blessings of your life back to God. Not connecting the
things He does every single day back to His grace, and His mercy, and His
goodness, and as a proof that He loves you, and He's here for you, and even in
the bad times He's still coming through for you! Why will gratitude change your
life? Because gratitude brings glory to God, brings God to you, and it brings
joy and perspective to life. James
McDonald said like this:
Gratitude
is the attitude that sets the altitude for your life.
Gratitude
is the attitude that sets the altitude for your life.
You
know what happens when you wake up in the morning? And maybe you feel bad. You
know the truth is for a lot of us, we wake up and it's not like our first
thoughts in the morning are happy thoughts. Because we've got trials, we've got
challenges, we've got war we’re heading into, and there's all those things. When you say, “God, this morning, thank You
so much that I'm breathing when a myriad people in the world struggle to draw
breath. God, thank You for the gift of this beating heart. God, thank You for
walking legs and functioning hands. God, thank You! This house I didn’t give myself this house. If
I went out to work to earn money it’s because You gave me the energy to work. God, You gave me this house and you walk past
those kids’ rooms, God, look at them! You made them, You created them, and You
gave me the gift of getting to raise
them. And God this mate of mine, this mate
mine, oh listen when so many people have no love in their life, are as lonely
as they could possibly be, God, You gave
them to me! I know Lord....” Don't get into lying to God “oh God they're
perfect!” He knows your lying. You know
you're making that up! They're not perfect, you're not perfect, you got
problems, so do they. “God thank You. You sent them to me, and if You sent them
to me, the same God who sent His Son for me, You're working through them in me.
God thank You.” You think that won't
change the way you relate to your mate, you think that won't change the way you
parent your kids, you think that won't change the way you walk into work, you
think that won't change...
Listen,
what you've just done is inserted God into the situation! You're here, You're good and You love me. I
get the privilege of giving You glory today!
Second Corinthians 9
15 Thanks be unto God for his
unspeakable gift.
Will
you stand with me? Here's how I want to end this. For somebody in this auditorium, that's your
verse. Thanks be unto God for His
unspeakable gift! What is that? Jesus
Christ.
You
know why some of you have never become Christians? Because you don't really
believe you're a sinner. You don't really
believe you need a Savior. Oh friend, listen to me, don't let society, and
culture, and self-help send you to hell!
You and I are as broken as we can be. We haven't loved this Creator, we
haven't followed Him, we haven't served Him. We've tried to use Him. We wanted His gifts. We've been on a mad
march away from Him all of our lives. And that same God sees, that like a leper,
you are eaten up with sin and you were separated from Him. You are offensive to
Him and unless something is done for you, you won't spend eternity with God,
and you won't spend eternity in heaven, and you won't spend eternity in His
embrace. Please don't let the culture lie you!
You were eaten up with this disease, but God loved you. And He saw you
at a distance, and He knew you couldn't do a thing to get rid of your disease,
so He sent His Son down to earth and he lived a perfect life for you. When he
died on that cross, listen, God gave His Son your leprosy. Jesus on the cross was eaten up with your sin
and He was separated from God so that you could be forgiven, you could be made
whole, so that you could come back into a relationship with God.
Friend
I want to ask you question this morning, if you ever come to the point, if you
ever come to the moment, when you said “God, I’m a sinner. I'm so busted up. There's
nothing I can do. I can't earn my way back, I can't come back, but Jesus I
believe You're that good, and You're my only hope, and You're my only Savior,
and I'm asking You to save my soul, and I'm so grateful if You will.” I want to tell you something, friend, you
won't walk out of here the same person. You’ll walk out of here changed; you’ll
walk out of here born again, not because anything you did, but because
everything He did! Praise God He's that good.
If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus Christ, I'm telling
you, you'll never be able to say when you stand before a holy God that you
never heard it. Oh God, give you eyes to
see and ears to hear! Christians, for
those of us who've been saved by the mercy of the Lamb, why don't we start out
today, this first Sunday in November, saying “Glory to God! Thank You for
everything You've given. All that You
are and all that you've done.”
.
Let's
give Him praise and delight His heart today! Father, we thank You for Your
goodness. We praise Your Holy Name. We need You more than we could ever
possibly realize and when we're grateful it brings us back to the realization
of where we really are, and where You really are, and what we really need. God
give us grateful hearts, and forgive us for our ingratitude, and save the soul
of that one here today that doesn't know Christ. It's in your precious name I
pray, Amen
