Don’t just check the boxes. Sing a song.
Loving someone through duty isn’t a bad thing. We show love to others by acts of duty towards them. Changing diapers. Duty. (See what I did there.) Mowing the lawn. Taking care of a sick spouse. Duty. You get my drift.
Some of our acts toward God stem from a place of duty. And we should still do them. The faithful and responsible duty of following Jesus requires us to do some things that are dutiful.
But when our relationship with Jesus becomes more dutiful than born of thanksgiving, we run the risk of becoming brittle, legalistic and adopting a religious spirit that does anything but lead the lost to Jesus.
Ps 69
I will praise the name of God with song and shall magnify Him with thanksgiving. And it will please the Lord BETTER than an ox or a young bull with horns and hoofs.
When thanksgiving wells up and erupts from you as praise, God is most pleased.
You can’t fake true thankfulness. Genuine gratitude can’t be achieved in the form of duty - it bursts out of our hearts unrehearsed and unscripted.
Yet even thankfulness and gratitude involve discipline. If you don’t choose to turn your heart and mind at some point during the day towards thanking God, it’s easy to miss it altogether. It doesn’t always happen on its own, you’ve got to create a regular space for it.
If disciplines don’t lead to authentic gratitude & heart songs of praise to Jesus - you’re missing out on what is BEST. When you’re checking all the boxes, but your relationship w/ Jesus seems dry…ask yourself “when’s the last time I truly sang of song of thankfulness to Him.”