It’s practically a requirement to write major posts for major holidays. I’m not sure who collects the unwritten rules of the blogosphere, but I know for certain that one of those rules is that bloggers must write posts about their overwhelming gratitude and thankful hearts on Thanksgiving.

I’ve expressed my gratitude here before. Instead of a traditional gratitude post, I thought I’d share a revolutionary thought I’ve been learning from John Piper in his book Future Grace.

Gratitude doesn’t function properly when it is forced to look forward.

We can’t express gratitude in the future. We can express it for the past. And we can let that gratitude direct our hearts for what’s to come, but gratitude is a distinctly past-oriented emotion.

Gratitude looking toward the future, Piper warns, can create a debtor’s ethic that leads to legalism. I must do this and I must be grateful and I must try harder because look at all God has done for me and I want to keep that gravy train of blessings flowing!

But it just won’t work.

Trying to express gratitude in the future is like trying to put a underpowered bulb in an Easy Bake oven—it seems like it should do the trick, but you end up with a nasty pile of brownie sludge disappointment at the end of the day, because you’re not using the proper expression for the situation.

So, if gratitude doesn’t propel us forward, what does?

Faith.

Faith, unlike gratitude, is future oriented. You can’t express faith in the past and you can’t express gratitude in the future.

Here’s how Piper clarifies.

To be sure, faith can look back and believe a truth about the past (like the truth that Christ died for our sins). It can look out and trust a person (like the personal receiving of a Jesus Christ). And it can look forward and be assured about a promise (like, “I will be with you to the end of the age”).

We must stop trying to let gratitude propel the train only faith can pull.

Here’s how we make the most out of past and future grace.

Past grace is glorified by intense and joyful gratitude. Future grace is glorified by intense and joyful confidence.

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There is no expression in the Bible that declares someone obeyed because of gratitude or thankfulness. Rather, as we see in Hebrews 11, the great saints did all they did “by faith.”

Faith in future grace, not gratitude, is the source of radical, risk-taking, kingdom-seeking obedience.

Faith is our comfort. Faith is what makes much of God for the future. Faith is the only thing that can make sense of the times when it is difficult to be grateful.

Only If we trust God to then past calamities into future comfort can we look back with gratitude for everything.

I can’t be grateful to God for what he’ll do in the future. But I can put my faith in him that His future grace will supply for all my needs.

So today, let us be grateful. But for tomorrow, let us look forward in faith.

Question: How have you seen gratitude stammer where only faith will do?