gratitude

Bad Attitudes & Black Holes

by Ben Zornes · May 22, 2025

Bad attitudes are black holes. Now, I’m a pastor by trade, not an astrophysicist, so forgive me if I’m a bit inaccurate in the particulars of what happens in those mysterious heavenly phenomena. Like black holes, bad attitudes really suck all light into themselves. Everything that gets too close gets swallowed up.

A certified grump, who is full of bitter complaints and seething resentments, can turn every room or situation either into a broiler room or a walk-in freezer. Such sinful dispositions have an incredible gravitational pull to cause anyone who gets close to simply slip into the grip of the grumpiness. It might be out of despair, fear, anger, or laziness, but when sinful moods are allowed to prevail in a relationship (whether in a marriage, family, church, friendship, or business) it is certain to make everyone miserable.

If you are the grump, you might develop a perverse joy in seeing how your foul mood sucks the life out of all those around you. You may know that what you’re doing is wrong. But, you simply don’t know how to refrain from the pleasure you find in making folks revolve around your ever-changing moods. If you find yourself orbiting such a grump you might scratch your head as to how in the world you can escape the clutches of the black hole which has emerged in your living room.

For both the grump and those in their gravitational orbit the only way out is gratitude and joy. Gratitude arises when you realize that God, through Christ, has pardoned you for all your sins. Joy arises when you trust that God looks at you in Christ and delights in you. This faith and the thankful rejoicing that arises from it, is irrepressible. Such faith is the only thing potent enough to attain a sufficient escape velocity.

Unimaginable Abundance

by Ben Zornes · Nov 1, 2023

You live in an age of unprecedented wealth. Very few Americans have ever had to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. Now, even if you have faced severe financial strain, to the point of living for an extended period on beans & rice, it is also likely that due to the abundance around you and through the generosity of others, you were able to avoid prolonged famine.

You ought to realize that this arrangement is an overwhelming exception in history. You can get ripe strawberries in February. Whereas, many of your ancestors probably never ate a strawberry, maybe never even heard of them.

I bring this up to stir up the gratitude which should be one of the primary attributes which mark us as we feast at the Lord’s Table. Not only has God been profoundly kind to you in your circumstances by placing you in a period of history marked by unmerited abundance, but He has poured out upon you the surpassing blessing of welcoming you into all the manifold blessings of His triune life.

The nourishment which God your Father provides for you is not a hand to mouth subsistence. He doesn’t dole out His grace in rations sliced paper thin. His love towards us is great. Everything necessary for life & godliness is provided for you by His loving hand. You may be weak, but He is strong. You may be weary, but He is your Rest. You may be discouraged, beaten up, and surrounded on every side; but He is to you a Rock, a high tower, and a mighty deliverer. Upon this table is a memorial meal which assures you that, as the Apostle Paul put it, “All things are yours.” And the glory of all these glories is that all this is given to you through only one means: the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Death Blow to Atheism

by Ben Zornes · Nov 22, 2021

There’s been a steady march from Darwin down to the present madness that afflicts our nation. As soon as creation, and man in particular, is no longer seen as the handiwork of Almighty God, the slow march to the hell commences. An Atheist not only shakes his fist at God, he severs the spinal cord of his own humanity. To be human is to stand in an office, to be placed in position as a contingent being, made in the image and by the very hand of God. To cut that cord is to descend into madness. And our culture has descended very deep into madness indeed.

The Atheist who sets out to enjoy all the beauty, all the glory, all the blessing, is thwarted at every turn because they cannot say “thank you” for any of it. There’s no One to thank, after all. This is all just matter in motion. That ache to give thanks, but refusing to acknowledge the Fount from whom all blessings flow is what drives the Atheistic culture into madness.

This, however, is where God delights to meet lost mankind. When we’re mired in the filth of our own making, God comes down. Affirming that God created the cosmos, by the Word of His power, in six days gives meaning and purpose to the glory around each corner and in each creature. This doctrine gives vent to man’s desire to say, “Thank you.”

Christian thankfulness is what deals a death blow to atheism. We have a million glories around us, crowned bythe greatest glory: union with God through Christ. As we give thanks, we acknowledge our position as dependent creatures, and thus rise into true humanity. In our present conflict with our national madness, Christians must engage the fight with this weaponry: grateful praise to our Creator & Redeemer.

Analytics for a Non-Analytic

by Ben Zornes · May 31, 2016

Iâ€™ve been tinkering with my blog recently, and I have some changes to be revealed soon. But one thing I came across as I was making these adjustments was the data for the traffic that has visited my site over the last three years. It took a bit for me to start to realize what these numbers & stats mean, and I was shocked when it began to sink in. Over the last three years my little blog here has had visit from 150+ countries, the top ten are as follows:

United States: 28,701
Canada: 2,506
Australia: 1,308
South Africa: 799
Brazil: 592
United Kingdom: 577
Philippines: 386
Germany: 290
India: 249:
New Zealand: 212

On an average month, 1,057 spend a spell reading my blog posts, or perusing the other resources on my site. Even over the last year, since weâ€™ve moved to Moscow, ID for me to attend Greyfriars Hall, and my blogging has been less frequent, thereâ€™s been a considerably faithful following. That humbles me, and spurs me onwards in living a life to the glory of Christ, in service to His saints, and reaching the lost through all means available to me.

The top ten most read posts are:

George Muller: For the Benefit of the ChurchÂ (7,037 views)
Bamboozling Our Inner PhariseeÂ (3,920 views)
Think About PornÂ (2,714 views)
To Destroy the Works of the DevilÂ (2,581 views)
The Ministry of IntercessionÂ (2,476 views)
Your Days (of Singleness) Are NumberedÂ (2,104 views)
The Recipe for Spiritual StarvationÂ (1,839 views)
Leaven in the LumpÂ (1,590 views)
A Bunch of Baby-HatersÂ (1,526 views)
Summer Advice for SonsÂ (1,463 views)

Ironically, the term that has brought in the most traffic via Google searches is: â€œdestroy the works of the devilâ€. This is because one of the first things I did on my blog, clear back in 2009, was a series on â€œ5 Reasons Jesus Had to Dieâ€, and the last one was â€œTo Destroy the Work of the Devilâ€. Numerous variations of that phrase have brought in traffic, and Iâ€™m grateful that as people are grappling with how to fight the Adversary of the church, somehow they land on my site and, I pray, are guided into understanding that the cross of our Lord Jesus has dealt a death blow to Satan and his kingdom.

If I were to pick which post is the most important to me, that’d be tough, but perhapsÂ A Great Mountain, and a Crumbling StatueÂ would rank highly. WithÂ Beware ErasmusÂ ranking highly as well.Â He Will Answer, from about a year ago, is also one that is profoundly important for me and I think for all the saints.

All of this is simply to say, thank you. Those who have returned with each post and shared and tweeted out quotes from my posts, you have left me humbled and grateful. I do this all toÂ present the preciousness of Christ to the church and the world. Reviewing the last three years’ analytics has only deepened my gratitude for the readers/visitors of this site! I profoundly value your support and disagreement, as both are important to me. Every time you re-post, share, tweet, email, print it out and hand it to a friend…I’m blessed that the thoughts I’ve cobbled together have been a blessing to others. So, here’s to the next three years…onward and upward.