Let the Thanks Come Out! #17

As I mentioned yesterday, the church at Corinth had a complaining problem: they were never satisfied with what God had provided, spiritually or physically. The result was that they were always arguing with one another and living sinful selfish lives without regard to one another. In short, they were focusing on the things of this world and their personal happiness in this life to the neglect of what really matters. As he nears the end of his letter, Paul turns their attention forward, to the resurrection that is to come. Chapter 15:

 50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God has given us much for which we should be thankful: provision of our physical needs, the body of Christ the help us on life's journey, the Holy Spirit to help us do what we cannot, but most of all, He has given us Christ, who has defeated death, and the sin that makes us all so ungrateful. That is the icing on the cake. That is what tops it all off: Thanks be to God for Christ, and all that He has done, is doing, and is yet to reveal to us.  May our thanks for Christ come out loud.