Grace Fuels Gratitude

One of the easiest lessons I ever learned came through a saying I heard growing up: “If you ain’t got it, you can’t give it.” I heard it so often I thought it was Scripture. In principle, it is. Spiritually speaking, if you don’t have the Spirit, you can’t give gratitude.

The first truth of biblical gratitude is that it’s commanded by God. The second truth is that it’s produced by God. The same grace that saves us also enables us to give thanks. In other words, divine grace is the means of gratitude.

The apostle Paul said, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). Gratitude is God’s will, and He provides the power to obey to those He saves—through grace, by union with Christ and the indwelling of His Spirit. The command stands for all, but the enabling comes to believers.

To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him… abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7). Be grateful in proportion to the grace you’ve received. Later, he added, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… and be thankful” (Col. 3:15). To the Ephesians, he said, “Be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks always and for everything to God” (Eph. 5:18-20). Gratitude, therefore, is inseparable from the Spirit of God. As He pours grace into us, thanksgiving overflows out of us.

We saw this truth in the story of the ten lepers. Ten cried for mercy. Ten were healed. Only one returned to give thanks, and to him, Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19). Faith returned in gratitude because grace had been received. The man’s thankfulness didn’t earn grace but expressed it. Faith produces thanksgiving because grace fuels gratitude.

Grace Produces Gratitude

Only those indwelt by the Spirit can sustain the posture God commands—continual, Godward gratitude. True thanksgiving is the language of the redeemed. “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). In other words, the gratitude God requires, God supplies.

The psalmist had it right when he wrote, “Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name” (Ps. 140:13). Gratitude marks the righteous because they possess the means to give it. Grace begets gratitude, and gratitude, in turn, multiplies grace. The two form a beautiful, endless cycle.

Faith produces thanksgiving because grace fuels gratitude.

Paul captured this in his second letter to the Corinthians:

“Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully… God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things, you may abound in every good work… You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.”

2 Corinthians 9:6-11

Grace given produces gratitude expressed, which leads to more grace received. God gives so that we might give thanks, and in giving thanks, we receive even more of His grace. Gratitude, then, is not only obedience but participation in the divine exchange of grace and glory.

Disgrace Withholds Gratitude

If gratitude is the evidence of grace received, then ingratitude reveals grace rejected. The Lord’s Supper (sometimes called the Eucharist, meaning “thanksgiving”) is a vivid reminder of this truth. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we publicly declare what we have received—saving grace through Christ’s atonement. Believers give thanks because they know grace personally.

But Paul warned Timothy that in the last days, people would become “lovers of self… proud, abusive, disobedient… ungrateful, unholy” (2 Tim. 3:2). Ingratitude is therefore a mark of the unregenerate heart because “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… and he is not able to understand them” (1 Cor. 2:14). Without the Spirit, people may enjoy God’s gifts, but they miss the Giver. Thanksgiving withers where grace is absent.

Matthew Henry once wrote, “Nothing awakens deeper gratitude than God’s forgiveness of sin.” The greatest display of grace demands the deepest gratitude. Has God forgiven you? If so, the Spirit within you compels you to live thankfully as a continual expression of faith.

Grace fuels gratitude. Without it, thankfulness dies at the root. But with it, our hearts, like the healed leper, can’t help but turn back to Christ, fall at His feet, and give thanks.

This article was adapted from the book Grateful Again by Jacob Abshire.