Ingratitude thwarts fellowship. Whether it be fellowship with God or fellowship with our family and Christian brothers and sisters, ingratitude will be like a tire with a slow leak.

In regards to our relationship with the Lord, ingratitude always comes with an accomplice or two. Lust rears its head because you aren’t grateful for the spouse God has given you. Envy arises because you refuse to thank the Lord for all that He has given you. Anxiety grabs your throat because you’ve neglected to offer up sincere praise to the Lord for the whole host of tendnermercies He’s shown you. Failure to regularly offer unto the Lord gratitude at every turn and in every season is an invitation to a whole host of other sins to come take up residence in your life.

But ingratitude also weakens earthly bonds of fellowship. A demanding husband who fails to praise his wife in the gates is a Pharaoh demanding brick without straw. A parent who gripes to their kids about how naughty they are is pouring sawdust in the gears. An employer who treats good employees by alway finding fault and never providing praise is adding a liability to his balance sheet.

Gratitude trains you to see glories and opportunities where you never saw them before. This in turn, means that being grateful is a force multiplier. Instead of finding all the faults in those around you, or grumbling about how difficult the circumstances are which God has given you, take the time this week to do two things each day. First, deliberately take a few minutes to pray to the Lord and list a handful of things you’re grateful to Him for. Secondly, on a daily basis thank someone in your life for something you appreciate about them. One last thing, be specific not vague.

Ben Zornes – February 4th, 2024

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I want to draw your attention to the profound wittiness that is present in the narrative of the Golden Calf incident. The tale is familiar enough. The people grow restless as Moses meets with Yahweh atop Sinai. They insist on Aaron making them a god. He complies with their request, fashioning a Golden Calf out of the plunder which they’d gotten as they left Egypt.

But how the text (Ex. 32) describes these idolators is what I want to note. The people stoop down to eat and drink. They spring up to frolic. God calls them stiff-necked, we might say bullheaded. The language paints them as straying, running wild, quickly spooked, needing to be corralled. As one commentator, who first drew my attention to this, said, “[they are portrayed] as wild calves […] because they transformed into the very object of their worship.”

Here in vivid narrative is the truth of the proverbial saying: you become like what you worship. Worship isn’t an optional add on to the life of humans. It’s why we were made. It’s hardwired into our system. God made us to worship Him, and by worshipping Him we most truly bear His image. To be human is to imitate and image forth God our Creator.

If you determine to worship anything else, you are also bound to the imitation of that thing. If you serve a golden calf, you become like a wild ox. This is why the self-absorption of our age is so very destructive. If you become like what you worship, what happens when you worship a powerless and depraved creature in rebellion to his Creator? You get a human deteriorating into themselves. It’s moral radioactive decay. The only remedy for such a moral implosion is to repent and worship God alone according to His Word.

Ben Zornes – January 28, 2024

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The typical modern individual is haunted by two conflicting notions: there’s something deeply wrong with me, and it must be the fault of everyone and everything other than me. This being the case, we have ordained a priesthood of therapists who offer us soothing words of insanity: speak your truth, triggered by your trauma, validate your feelings, be true to yourself, follow your heart.

The hope is that by vocalizing our feelings of hurt and trauma to a therapist, and hearing them validate our feelings, we might enjoy robust life, soundness of mind, and tranquility of emotions. But the Word of God comes to us as rock, as foundation, as immovable glory. It doesn’t budge, no matter how frenzied our feelings might be. Our therapeutic age denies the sufficiency of Scripture. It insists on viewing self in a psychologized light, instead of letting the light of God’s Word reveal the truth about the inner man. 

The therapized soul will soon be deluded with a notion that self is sovereign. But here is where the Gospel’s call resounds. When we submit to God’s Word we learn two things about ourselves. First, we aren’t God for He made us and not we ourselves. Second, we aren’t holy, for we are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. 

You are not the sum of your traumas, feelings, and perceptions of reality. You are who God says you are. This means you are either a rebel against God & reality, or you are owned as a beloved child of a loving Father, who through Christ has adopted you into the warmth of His Heavenly Household. This therapeutic age has left mankind swimming in the instability of his own feelings. What godly counselors do is point the way to the immovable foundation of truth in God’s Word.

Our culture has been coddled into thinking that our feelings need perpetual validation, whereas the Word reveals to us that our feelings are tainted by sin, immature, and in need of the discipline of repentance. We need to go to God for forgiveness for being swept up in the cultural immorality of exalting our feelings above God’s Word. May God grant us humility to bend before the mandates of Scripture, and receive it all by faith, that we might be restored and renewed by the living and abiding Word. May God root up any notions that we’ve adopted from the worldliness around us, that we may think God’s thoughts after Him. God’s Word is sufficient for every trial and temptation you might face. In confessing your sins, you are confessing the supremacy of Christ and His Word, and putting the word of man in its proper place.

Ben Zornes – January 21, 2024

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The holidays are rife with a temptation to let down your guard. Drinking to drunkenness. Lowering entertainment standards. Snapping in irritation at family members. Wandering down an internet rabbit hole of folly, envy, or lust. Being slothful and calling it rest.

As Christians, our celebrations are to be glorious. But the glory of our celebrations doesn’t come from reckless self-indulgence. Rather, the glory only comes from being a forgiven people. And, forgiven people ought to be marked as loving people. The equation which Christ gave us is that those who are forgiven much love much. But love isn’t the mushy slop of subjective feelings. The definition for love is found in the deep ocean of God’s attributes. 

The love of God which we are to imitate cannot be divorced from the holiness of God which we receive through Christ by the Spirit who dwells in us. Being forgiven is like getting rid the furniture of sin (the musty couch of envy, the chair of arrogance with a missing leg, the creaky bed-frame of lust, and so on). But a barren house, void of the comfort of lovely furniture and the beauty of attractive decor is not a pleasant place for celebration. Pursuing holiness is how the Spirit works in us to bring into our lives the pleasant furnishings of God’s love.

Holiness is loving what God loves and hating what God hates. This maxim holds true at all times, including our celebrations and holidays. The glory of our jollification comes from being forgiven and being holy by the Spirit’s power in us.

So be vigilant during your celebrations. Don’t put down the sword. Don’t fold your hands in sloth when it comes to vigilantly watching for sin. Don’t leave a chink in your armor. For godly celebration is a lethal weapon in overthrowing the darkness of our age.

Our times of leisure are a blessing from God’s hand, a gift of His grace, and a foretaste of the everlasting peace purchased for us through Christ’s blood. As such, we must not neglect to put on Christ in our times of celebration. We must not forsake our duties of righteousness which God has commanded for us. And we certainly must not toy with our temptations instead of slitting their throats. May God give you vigilance in your merry-making, that you may be a clear and vivid testimony of the glory of His forgiveness and the potency of His holiness in us.

Finally, true rejoicing and celebration only from flows from the knowledge that God is merciful to sinners. This mercy was made manifest in the cross of our Lord Jesus, through whom the world was crucified to you and you to the world. So let all your rejoicing this month be grounded upon this everlasting glory, that your sins, which are scarlet, He has washed whiter than snow.

Ben Zornes – November 26, 2023

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