In gratitude for grace: praise, worship and the sanctified life

This article seeks to offer a theological account of gratitude from a Protestant perspective by arguing that the Christian life is one marked by a covenant of grace and gratitude in which the creature's response of gratitude to divine grace is a participating in that grace, and, as such, is a full recognition of the ways of grace which flow from the divine life to creation. The first section of this article examines this theme in relation to creation from nothing. The second establishes God's electing will as the foundation of God's willing to be for another in creation. The third section examines justification by grace as the soteriological form of God's gracious turning towards the creature in divine mercy. The fourth section sketches the forms of gratitude that one might find in the Christian life as these are brought together in the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist.