Like A Camel Through The Eye Of A Needle Is Gratitude Preceding Lack

Church, it is impossible for you to celebrate having something which you have never done without. You can NOT truly give praise to God for freedom if you are wholly unfamiliar with slavery. You CANNOT praise God for privilege if you are unfamiliar with punishment. You CANNOT praise Him for wealth if you are unfamiliar with poverty. Don't be a fool by thinking yourself wiser than what God has said.

God gives grace to the humble. Exclusively. This means that if He chooses to bestow His favor upon you, He must first humble you. There are no exceptions. You can no more bolster an appropriate sense of gratitude and praise to God for your freedom than a 6-year old from a rich family can give thanks to his father for a bowl of rice.

We are created to identify contrast. Our eyes see dark against light. Soft vs hard. Long vs short. Good against evil. How are you going to appreciate a warm bath if all you have ever known is a warm bath? How can you give praise for the luxury, if you have never experienced the shivering of a cold shower?

You CAN, however, "celebrate" these things. You can celebrate your freedom. You can celebrate mercy. You can celebrate wealth. But the celebration is twisted into idolatry because your enemy, the crafty one, leads you to believe that these are things you "deserve", and you have "earned", and to which you "own" the rights.

The celebration OF these things, then is given TO these things, and as result, not to God. The subtle twist of deception, intertwined with our avoidance of suffering, has a net effect in which Freedom, privilege, wealth all become idols.

Why do you think the revival of the Praise and Worship of Jesus Christ as our protector, and provider has largely come from the black church in the United States? In large part, it is because the black community of believers, as a direct result of the recent generations of suffering, is what God has used to make them more well-equipped to identify the CONTRAST between slavery and freedom.

The prophet Isaiah said of our Lord, our Master, our Intercessor, our Friend, that "he is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him."

If we are deceived into the secular worldview that we can find rest in the acquisition of all these things, then we will never find it. There is no way to Praise Him for what He has given us until we have become acquainted with the lack thereof. There is no other path to the house of the Lord, the city of Zion, than the path of the footsteps of Jesus. None.

And when we take the path of the cross of Christ, He will take us through suffering. Us. Individually. And As a family. As the household of God. Not experiencing suffering or lack? Having a hard time experiencing the Joy of Praising the Father for the good things He has done? You lack contrast. You need it.

It is somewhere within your reach. Find some close to you and carry some of that burden. Loving someone necessitates that you share in their sufferings. Stand close to them and let some of their ashes fall on Your head, drying your hair out. THEN, you will be able to experience the Joy and return sincere Praise to God for the oil he pours over your dried out head.

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen." - 1 John 5.