By H. Lynn Gardner
Doctors told me I would die of my pulmonary fibrosis if I did not get a lung transplant. On June 15, 2004, I received a double lung transplant and have been blessed with a 10-year extension on life with my wife, family, and friends, as well as continuing some teaching and writing.
Do you think I am grateful for this gift? I have been saved from death and received a new lease of life. I have tried to thank God every day for this gift of life.
Unsaved persons face the prospect of death without hope and eternal separation from God in the afterlife.
If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, you have been saved by the grace of God. We must not foolishly feel we deserve salvation. None of us deserves it. We must not take our salvation for granted. Let us be grateful and rejoice that God has granted us this wonderful gift.
Worship is a grateful response to God for who he is and what he has done. In our observance of the Lord”s Supper, we offer our grateful response to God for our salvation in Christ. How often during this last week did you thank God for your salvation? How often should I thank my wife, Barbara, for the meals she prepares? Every time! Some people think it would get old having the Lord”s Supper every week. Gathering around the Lord”s table every week as a body of believers is a checkpoint reminding each of us to express our gratitude to God. It never gets old thanking God for our salvation.
Do you feel grateful to God for forgiveness of your sins, your new life in Christ, your hope of Heaven? We don”t want to go through the motions of partaking of the bread and fruit of the vine as unthinking robots. We want to be heartfelt, grateful worshippers.
Paul reminds us why we should be grateful: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1, 2; English Standard Version, author emphasis). Christ died for us and saved us by his blood and by his life. “We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:11, ESV, author emphasis).
Lynn Gardner is a retired Bible college professor and academic dean.
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