THOUGHTS ON LOVING HEAVEN, RELIEF, AND GIFTS MORE THAN CHRIST

I shared in my sermon Sunday the possibility that people may desire to go to heaven with no desire for God. Who does not prefer eternal peace, bliss, joy, and to be with our loved ones in contrast with suffering, pain, and damnation? But is that what you want? you can love heaven and the idea of heaven and not love God. So the real question is "do you want the God of heaven more than you desire heaven?" The idolatry is insidious. To prefer anything above God is sin, worthy of judgement, and idolatry. If you do not prefer God above all things than you will not want to be in His heaven.

The question is "do you desire heaven for relief or do you desire heaven for God"? Do you have the heart like David who said in Psalm 27:4, "One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. " Or Paul who said, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:20). "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8). The desire of these men was not merely the things that God does for them, the gifts and graces from God, the benefits that He provides; but rather God Himself!

Think about this in regards to gratitude and thankfulness. During my childhood, every year on my birthday and at Christmas I eagerly expected a card from my grandmother. It wasn’t the card itself that I was excited about; it was what was inside the card. So I would quickly open the card ignoring whatever words my dear grandmother wrote to me in order to focus on the important thing: how much cash was inside. My response was dictated on whether much or little cash was given. Mom would say, “Wasn’t that nice of grandmother to give you that?” My mind was far from thoughts about my grandmother. No, I had deeper, more important things on my mind: Would I have enough to buy that army man set that I coveted?

Mom would ask the question again and I would respond about how nice it was in order to placate her. But then she would say, “Be sure to write a thank you note Billy.” Days would usually go by and somehow that thank-you note just didn’t seem to fit into my schedule. I was too busy playing with my new army man set. Mom at first gently reminded me about the necessity and consideration of writing that thank-you note. But that just didn’t seem to motivate me. After a few days of observing my procrastination she would make it an immediate and emphatic demand: “Billy you will write that thank you note Now!” Reluctantly, I would sit down and write my rapid and token thank you note. “Dear Grandmother, Thank you for the nice card (Who knows what she actually wrote me) and money you sent me. Love, your Grandson Billy.”

This ritual would be repeated by me semi-annually throughout my childhood with virtually the same coercion from my mom and the same reluctant response from me. As I am now considerably older and my dear grandmother has been long passed away, it saddens me to look back on my attitude towards my grandmother and her cards and my ingratitude towards her. From my grandmother’s perspective, I was the object of her love, and her gift was an expression of what she felt towards me as her grandson.

Sadly, my behavior and attitude communicated that I had little or no regard for my grandmother and that any gratitude I had was solely for the money she had given me. I never called her or wrote to her unless forced to. Yet I expected money at birthdays and Christmas and consistently received it from her in spite of my ingratitude. I was nominally thankful for her gifts but had little or no regard for her, the giver. Now I know what a precious and wonderful person she was and if she were I alive I would say “Thank you grandmother. Thank you for loving me and being so kind to me.” But even more I would say, “Thank you, grandmother for being you. I love you.” I’m beginning to understand gratitude in deeper, more precious ways.
My attitude towards my grandmother and towards her gifts has caused me to think much about gratitude.

There is one kind of gratitude that can be found inside and outside of Christianity. A drug addict might be thankful that he found some money to pay for his next fix. A thief may be thankful she didn't get caught when she took some merchandise from a store. A worker may be thankful for a bonus received at Christmas from a boss he despises. A child might be thankful for the gift given at Christmas by a little known distant relative or grandmother.

Jonathan Edwards speaks of the gratitude of the hypocrite. The hypocrite is thankful to God for His gifts but has no preference or regard for Him. How would you feel if you were lavished with thanks from someone who disliked or disregarded you? Wouldn’t you feel insulted regardless of the amount of thanks spoken to you? Wouldn’t you feel you were being used, like a commodity or tool, if you were considered neither attractive nor desired to be in the company of the other person? It’s the same way with God. If all of the gratitude and thanksgivings we express are not rooted in our delight in Him, love for Him, and our deepest regard for His person, than it is no more virtuous than an adulterous spouse who thanks her husband for the money she gets from him to take a trip to Hawaii with her lover.

True gratitude rises in cherishing the preciousness of Christ above every gift from God including life itself. It is very difficult to communicate with people a love for God when it is mixed with a lifestyle characterized by love for self and demonstrated with normal gratitude rooted in our own self-interest. That is why I have found that the separation and severing of His people from the gifts of this world through suffering produces a deep Christ centered love and joy and gratitude that survive the severing. Instead it rises above and out of reach of the loss of these things by cherishing Christ and causing the Christian to cry out to the nations: Trust, hope, love and give thanks to the Lord!
To be continued....