For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. John 1:16
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 1 Corinthians 16:23
When thinking about the various takes on gratitude these days, it reminds me of how all of our blessings come from God even though not everyone acknowledges Him. There’s also currently a general trend to change definitions. When I looked up gratitude in a modern dictionary online, there was no mention of God. I was pretty sure there had once been, so I searched and found this:
Webster’s Dictionary, 1828 edition
GRAT’ITUDE, noun [Latin gratitudo, from gratus, pleasing. See Grace.]
It has a standard definition, but at the end, it says this:
The love of God is the sublimest gratitude.
Since it said to “see Grace” and there was even a link, I did and was pleased to find that there were 10 references to God and/or the Bible:
GRACE, noun [Latin gratia, which is formed on the Celtic; Eng. agree, congruous, and ready. The primary sense of gratus, is free, ready, quick, willing, prompt, from advancing.]
- Favor; good will; kindness; disposition to oblige another; as a grant made as an act of grace.
- Appropriately, the free unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him. And if by grace then it is no more of works. Romans 11:6.
- Favorable influence of God; divine influence or the influence of the spirit, in renewing the heart and restraining from sin. My grace is sufficient for thee. 2 Corinthians 12:9.
- The application of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Romans 5:20.
- A state of reconciliation to God. Romans 5:2.
- Virtuous or religious affection or disposition, as a liberal disposition, faith, meekness, humility, patience, etc. proceeding from divine influence.
- Spiritual instruction, improvement and edification. Ephesians 4:29.
- Apostleship, or the qualifications of an apostle. Ephesians 3:8.
- Eternal life; final salvation. 1 Peter 1:13.
- Favor; mercy; pardon.
Of course, many of those references pertain specifically to the free gift of salvation by God’s grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-10), but nevertheless the two words are closely connected.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we* should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. James 1:17-18
*”we” refers to believers, who are the Body of Christ. (Ephesians 1:22-23, 5:23, 30, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28)
Finally, I looked up grace in the current Merriam-Webster online dictionary and found that this as the first entry: unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification
So that was very nice to see. (Hebrews 3:12-15)
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