Semikkah7

11/04/2021 – From Alistair Begg’s Thanksgiving letter in the mail: Jonathan Edwards on “gracious” gratitude.

I quote from the beginning of the letter:

“Jonathan Edwards was born on October 5, 1703 in East Windsor, Connecticut. Regarded as the greatest theologian and philosopher of British American Puritanism and a forerunner of the Great Awakening, he is best known for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which he preached in 1741 following George Whitefield’s tour of the Thirteen Colonies.

Edwards is on my mind as I write this letter on the eve of his birthday, not because of that sermon but on account of waht he taught about gratitude.

In hia book The Religious Affections, he distinguished from what he referred to as “natural” gratitude and “gracious” gratitude. The former is an appreciation for great gifts – for things that make us happy, like life, family, employment, leisure freedom, a warm bed, cold drinks and sunshine. The kind of thankfulness may be displayed by “natural man” without God’s redeeming grace,.

Gracious gratitude starts from a different place. Instead of beginning with WHAT God gives us, this begins with WHO God is and thanks Him for His character, goodness, love, and power, regarless of particular favors and enjoyments received. This Edwards said, is evidence of the work of the Holy SPirit in a life.

As we sit down to a Thanksgiving meal, it is perfectly understandable that we all have occasion to thank God for all the benefits that we enjoy, for all that we find to be favorable. But what are we to do with the disappointments and difficulties, the losses and sorrows of the past twelve months? By nature we may express gratitude for all that is pleasurable. Only by grace may we learn to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thesasalonians 5:18).

Jonathan Edwards died from a smallpox vaccination, an event that gave his wife Sarah an opportunity to display gracious gratitude. She wrote to her daughter, “What shall we say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. … He has made me adore His goodness that we had him so long. But my God lives, and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God: and there I am, and love to be.”

….”

Soli Deo Gloria!