"The vibration of gratitude attracts more positive things into your life."
"Gratitude is the heart's memory."
"Gratitude is the open door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude."
Everyone agrees gratitude is good - from hardened atheists to well-taught toddlers. But especially Christians. We laud gratitude as a spiritual fruit of faithful religion. And it is. But false gratitude is not. And sadly it's false gratitude that pervades our society today, including our pithy spirituality. But what do I mean by that phrase, "false gratitude"? I'll let Jonathan Edwards, a brilliant eighteenth century Puritan American pastor, explain. In his book, The Religious Affections, he wrote of the difference between true and false, or "natural," gratitude.
True gratitude or thankfulness to God for His kindness to us arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what He is in Himself; whereas natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation.
In other words, true gratitude is rooted in worship to God. So false gratitude is not really gratitude at all. It contributes to self-love, not love of God. And so the non-Christian cannot be truly grateful, because they fail to recognize that everything they have to be grateful toward is because and for God. They fail to recognize the glory of God, and so their gratitude is rooted in pride. Because they are not grateful to their Maker, any attempts at gratitude they have are false.
But for the Christian, our gratitude is laid on the foundation "of love to God for what He is in Himself." Because of His good and glorious and holy character, we can be grateful to Him, and from that arises gratitude to others, only because of our gratitude to God.
"I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever." - Psalm 86:12
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