Rediscovering Gratitude in Ephesians 1
A few weeks ago, I was meditating on Ephesians chapter 1 when something struck me freshly: God has lavished us with an astonishing number of blessings simply because we are in Christ. Reading through verses 3 to 14, I started counting and by the time I finished, I had ten distinct gifts:
- We are “chosen” in Him.
- We are blessed with “every spiritual blessing.”
- We are “adopted” as sons.
- We are made “whole and righteous” in Him.
- We are “unconditionally accepted.”
- We are “redeemed.”
- We are “forgiven.”
- He has “made known the mystery of His will” to us.
- We are given an “inheritance.”
- We are “sealed with the Holy Spirit.”
Any one of these could be its own article. But as I sat with the weight of all ten together, the Holy Spirit brought to mind an unexpected companion passage: Luke 17:11-18, the story of the ten lepers Jesus healed and only one of whom came back to say thank you.
That connection got me thinking hard about gratitude itself.
What does thankfulness actually look like?
When someone gives us a gift, a few natural responses follow. First, there's an emotional response — gladness, elation, maybe even celebration — and the more thoughtful or costly the gift, the deeper that gratitude tends to run. Second, there's acknowledgment: recognizing the effort, consideration, and possibly sacrifice behind the gift. Third, there's retelling — sharing with others how meaningful the gift was. I still tell people about a set of golf clubs my son and daughter-in-law gave me years ago.
Measured against those three responses, I had to admit something uncomfortable: I looked far more like the nine lepers who never came back than the one who did. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I truly thanked God — with real emotion, real acknowledgment, real retelling — for choosing me, forgiving me, redeeming me, sealing me, adopting me, giving me an inheritance.
Why is ingratitude so easy?
I asked myself why, and a few answers surfaced:
- Entitlement — treating the gift as something owed to me.
- Self-sufficiency — not feeling I needed it in the first place.
- Pride — too proud to admit dependence on someone else.
- Minimizing the Gift — downplaying it as no big deal.
- A Transactional Mindset — wondering what the giver wants in return, which quietly poisons gratitude.
- Distraction — simply too preoccupied with life to notice the significance of what was given.
That last one may sound the least defiant, but it might be the most common. The nine lepers weren't necessarily hostile toward Jesus. They were likely just swept up in getting their lives back — running to family, to the priest, to normalcy — and never circled back.
You'd think being healed from a terminal, shame-inducing disease would be unforgettable. And yet how often do I forget the far greater gift — that Christ paid the wages of my sin (Romans 6:23) and cleansed me of every shame my disobedience caused? Too often, I go about my day as if nothing significant happened at all, never pausing to thank God for what He's actually done.
Two Small Changes
That conviction led me to two simple practices. First, I now begin my day reading Ephesians 1:3-14 and thanking God specifically for each gift listed there. Second, I'm trying to pause each hour and thank Him for something concrete — my health, my family, my work, the beauty of creation, food, shelter.
So let me ask you the same question I asked myself: looking at Luke 17, are you more like the nine, or the one? The Samaritan leper who returned didn't offer a quiet nod of appreciation — he came back praising God with a loud voice, fell face down at Jesus' feet, and gave thanks.
Let's be the one who comes back.