Notable and Quotable -- Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Gratitude
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Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. In honor of this special day, we thought this quote by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones would be especially appropriate. It reminds us that being grateful is evidence that God has opened our hearts and minds to the glories of the Gospel.
"My dear friends, have you a sense of gratitude to God? Is there a glimmering of praise in your heart somewhere? Is there something within you that makes you desire to praise God and to magnify his grace? Is it possible to be a Christian without feeling something of that? Do you believe your sins are forgiven? Do you believe your soul is redeemed? Do you say that you have got a new nature? Do you say that there is a blessed hope set, awaiting you in heaven with God? Do you believe all that?" "...Do you really believe it? How can you believe it without feeling some sense of gratitude and of praise and of thanksgiving? "Do you feel a little of it? I want to try and help you. Is there the faintest flicker of a sense of gratitude within you? If so, you can be hopeful. But if you can consider these blessed facts; if you can consider the Christmas event, the Incarnation and all that followed; if you can look at it with a complete detachment, with a philosophical or intellectual objectivity; and if it does not move you even to the slightest fraction; if there is not a speck of softness in your calloused, hard heart, how can you be a Christian? O no! The one who realises what God is doing and what is happening says, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.'"
Excerpted from Magnify the Lord by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Christian Focus, reprint 2011), p. 106-107. This book is an extended meditation on Luke 1:46-55 and Mary's song of praise at the angel's message to her. Learn more about this title at ChristianFocus.com.