The holiday season is upon us. Everywhere you look, gift ideas and holiday specials dominate the landscape, focusing on all you can get at Christmas. Even Thanksgiving has degraded into nothing more than the start of Black Friday sales.

Although disappointed, I am not surprised that it is this way in a world full of people who put self above all else.  The “season of getting” has expanded so greatly in people’s priorities that they can no longer reserve even one day for thanking the One from Whom everything comes in the first place.

But God told us it would be that way. Romans 1:21 tells us,

“When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

A lack of true thankfulness is a symptom of a life controlled by sin rather than by God.

Paul says these kinds of people are not thankful because they are “vain in their imaginations.” In other words, the only thing that they think of is themselves. And when you think more of yourself than you do of others, or of God, thankfulness dies.

Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. used to say that “when gratitude dies on the altar of a man’s heart, that man is well-nigh hopeless.” 

May none of us find ourselves in that category of hopeless people because we have lost our heart of thankfulness to the Lord. “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).