Pas­tor Julien Cyrus

What shall I ren­der un­to the LORD for all his ben­e­fits to­ward me? (Psalm 116:12)

Life be­comes a won­der­ful gift when we count our bless­ings and be­come ap­pre­cia­tive of the peo­ple and the re­sources God has giv­en to us. Be­ing grate­ful is not a de­c­la­ra­tion that every­thing is per­fect, but a com­mit­ment of our pre­pared­ness to make the best of our cir­cum­stances while be­liev­ing that all things are work­ing to­geth­er for our good (Ro­mans 8:28).

Ap­pre­ci­a­tion is like a breath of fresh, un­pol­lut­ed air in an age of cyn­i­cism and pes­simism, when recog­nis­ing the val­ue or sig­nif­i­cance of oth­ers, and hon­est­ly ex­press­ing ad­mi­ra­tion for one an­oth­er is quite rare.

In our time, it is more pop­u­lar to ex­press con­dem­na­tion, dis­gust, and ha­tred rather than en­cour­age­ment, adu­la­tion, and thanks­giv­ing.

Be­cause of our re­lent­less pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with gain, we have be­come more skilled at com­plain­ing than at ex­press­ing grat­i­tude. Paul says, “God­li­ness with con­tent­ment is great gain.

For we brought noth­ing in­to this world, and it is cer­tain we can car­ry noth­ing out” (1Tim­o­thy 6:6-7).

Ap­pre­ci­a­tion lifts our spir­its and mo­ti­vates us to do even bet­ter. While we do not en­gage in good deeds for earth­ly ap­plause, it cer­tain­ly feels good to be ad­mired and recog­nised.

Even God, the source of every good gift (James 1:17), needs en­cour­age­ment to con­tin­ue do­ing his great work. His heart­break­ing ob­ser­va­tion about Is­rael was: “The Lord blessed you in every way, but you would not serve him with joy­ful­ness, and with glad­ness of heart” (Deuteron­o­my 28:47).

Je­sus healed many peo­ple dur­ing his earth­ly min­istry. Af­ter ten lep­ers cried out to him for mer­cy, he sim­ply in­struct­ed them: “Go and show your­selves un­to the priests.” As they obeyed and went, they were cleansed. 

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glo­ri­fied God and pros­trat­ed him­self at Je­sus’ feet, giv­ing him thanks. Je­sus then asked, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? (Luke 17:15-19).

We must guard against the spir­it of en­ti­tle­ment—the feel­ing that we have a right to a ser­vice, or that we are de­serv­ing of cer­tain priv­i­leges, or spe­cial treat­ment. Je­sus’ para­ble in Luke chap­ter 15 about the “prodi­gal son” de­scribes an en­ti­tled young man who felt that his fa­ther and the world owed him some­thing. Up­on re­ceiv­ing his in­her­i­tance, he packed up and jour­neyed to a far coun­try, and there wast­ed it all with reck­less liv­ing. As his re­sources dwin­dled, he faced the re­al­i­ty of famine and pover­ty.

Up­on re­flect­ing while suf­fer­ing and re­pent­ing of his self­ish­ness, he re­turned home, a trans­formed man.

His mes­sage was: “Fa­ther, I am no longer fit to be called your son: treat me as one of your hired work­ers” (Luke 15:19).

A sto­ry which be­gins with an en­ti­tled, young man de­mand­ing to have what was his, ends with a hum­bled, bro­ken man who is pre­pared to serve oth­ers.

In the spir­it of true love, let us sac­ri­fi­cial­ly pour out our best in ser­vice to both God and man.

And may we al­ways re­mem­ber to say: “I ap­pre­ci­ate you.”