That He may Be Praised By Us

 

                    That He May Be Praised By Us

I love the old documents of the church, records of what our ancestors thought about God and how they incorporated these ideas in their everyday life. They have much to teach us!

I notice their emphasis on gratitude, how our grateful hearts continually thank God for His undeserved goodness to us.  "God is good all time. All the time God Is good" we chant to each other throughout the day. Apparently our ancestors did the same, too!

I am reading the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 now. Question 86 asks, "Since we are delivered from our misery, merely by grace, through Christ, without any merits of our own, why must we still do good works?"

The Answer: "Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by His blood also renews us by His Holy Spirit after His own image; that we may testify by the whole of our conduct our gratitude to God for His blessings, and that He may be praised by us."

What a great answer - how simple! How profound!

As we do good works - works God assigned to us before the creation of the world - we are testifying by our whole conduct our gratitude to Him for His continual  blessings...

and that He may be praised by us!

Our conduct conveys to Him our  grateful hearts, 

and are a way of giving  Him our praise...

there's nothing we can add to that!