About God's Gratitude

Musings About God

We do not doubt that God manifests love in the most perfect way. He is the God of all qualities. But sometimes, we do not have full awareness of the way in which he demonstrates his other qualities, such as gratitude. This monograph attempts to demonstrate the scope of the gratitude of Jehovah to his son. Our turn to cultivate this quality, towards God and towards our neighbor.
This text is an excerpt from an article on the site MusingAboutGod.com.

A noted Roman philosopher, Cicero, stated that “gratitude... is the greatest of all virtues”. This may well be the ultimate/penultimate truth. What greater gift can we give God than our gratitude? (some would add “obedience” to gratitude, and there is no quarrel with that, although obedience is more for our own benefit). If God values our gratitude as the greatest gift we can give him, would not that indicate that he himself is also a grateful, appreciative person? Look at the gratitude and appreciation he showed to Abraham, David, Job, and others. Now imagine this same very tender-hearted, dear, kind, grateful, person (God) being put in a position where he has to ask someone else (Jesus) to do a horrible dirty job that he can’t do, namely die. Imagine that this person (Jesus) is the person he already loves more than anyone else in the universe, imagine that he had already created the universe through and for that person. If you had to ask your husband/wife/son/daughter to risk and lose everything that they had to help you, and they not only did it willingly, exactly as you wished, with no ifs, ands, or buts, with no thought for themselves, because their love for you was so great. How would you feel towards them? You would give them everything you own, the “moon” as they say, yes?

God has total and complete trust in Jesus. (Hebrew 5:8) His appreciation for Jesus and what he did is ginormous. What does God stand to lose by showing Jesus immeasurable gratitude? Again, really, what does he stand to lose? What risk is he taking? In fact, by God’s showing such extreme gratitude in raising his son to a level equal to or very nearly equal to himself we get to see what a truly humble, good, trusting, grateful, appreciative, and loving person God really is.

Jesus himself seemed to express surprise in the gifts his Dad was going to give him. (John 5:22 ; Matthew 28:18) Jesus basically just wanted his old job back. (John 17:5) But God insists on Jesus receiving Kingship, powers of resurrection, judging, and worship. (Hebrews 1:6) In fact, relative to the 1000 year period of the Kingdom Jesus functions in a position higher than God. It is only at the end of the thousand year kingdom rule that Jesus gives “all things” back to his Dad. You can’t give something back if you don’t have it. (1 Corinthians 15:28, read the Scripture, that’s what it says) Really, doesn’t God take a position of serving his son when he says ‘Son, sit here at my right hand while I make your enemies a stool for your feet’? (Psalms 110:1 ; Heb 1:8) In essence God is saying ‘Son, you’ve done enough, please now, let me do this for you’. He loves his Son. (Please compare with John 3:35) Any decent person in God’s circumstance would do the same thing.

Think about it. Jesus was his firstborn. (Colossians 1:15) God made the universe for him in the first place, Jesus showed absolute obedience, absolute love and trust for his father, took the ultimate risk, Saved the world, hey, what more do you want?

So the greatest possible act of love and loyalty is rewarded with the greatest possible act of gratitude and appreciation. Kinda makes sense, yes That human father shows more appreciation, depth of emotion and trust than God ? In the real world you know how that father would treat that son. This may come as a surprise, but God lives in the real world too. He made the real world, and he made it based on himself and the principles and emotions that describe and define him. We cannot act on a higher level of emotions and principles than he does. And he cannot act on a lower level of emotions and principles than we do. You know what he did for his Son when he returned to heaven. And so do I. Amen.

the existence of God