“… although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful…” (Romans 1:21)
In the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome he gives a resume of the fall of the human race. Paul does the same thing Moses did in the third chapter of Genesis. They both describe the fall of man as it was and as it is. By that I mean they are not merely describing an historical event in the past but they want us to understand what is happening in our culture right now.
In Paul’s account of the fall of the human race he traces the origin of our fall to two things: we did not glorify God as God, and we were not thankful. He then continues to describe how God gave us up to what we wanted and we became guilty of every imaginable kind of sin. As he vividly describes what happened to the human race after God did not give up on us but gave us up to what we wanted, the result became what Paul described as “all unrighteousness.”
If you track with Paul as he itemizes what he means by “all unrighteousness,” it’s intriguing to realize that all that horrible sin began with the hard reality that we were not thankful. There are so many exhortations and prescriptions in the Word of God for us to be thankful but here in the first chapter of Romans is a great warning about the price of not being thankful.
Like it was and like it is, appreciate the value of an attitude of gratitude. And, like it was and like it is, do not underestimate the price of an attitude of ingratitude.
Dick Woodward, 22 November 2012
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