Do you appreciate Christ? That may seem like a silly question, and, in fact, it should be, but you would be surprised how many Christians take the blessings that we have for granted. To avoid this, we need to purposely stop and count our blessings from time to time and think about what it cost Christ for us to have them.

We should appreciate the life that Jesus was willing to live. This is hard for us because we have never experienced what Jesus had before His incarnation. He was in a perfect state of glory with His Father. This was something that Jesus missed while He was here on earth.

John 17:5 (ESV)
⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

It is hard to imagine Jesus be willing to give up this glory, glory that He had known throughout all eternity, just so that we could have our sins forgiven. While we love this life because it is all that we have ever known, to Jesus it was a serious downgrade. Surely, we should appreciate what He gave up for us. His willingness to come and live a human life, however, was just the beginning. Jesus was willing to come to earth and be humiliated.

Isaiah 53:3 (ESV)
³ He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Imagine Jesus knowing of this prophecy while it was being made by Isaiah, and still being willing to fulfill it. Our Savior knew exactly what He was getting into when He gave up heaven. It was one thing to give up His glory, but to come and be despised and mistreated, all for the sins of others, was an act of love only surpassed by the cross itself. No one likes to be rejected, but Jesus came to us knowing that such would be His destiny. Do you not appreciate this? To not do so is the ultimate demonstration of ingratitude. Let us not be guilty of such a thing.

Of course, as indicated above, the cross was the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus was willing to make, and without it, everything else He did would have been in vain. Blood had to be shed. A sacrifice had to be made. Jesus was the only one who was qualified to make this sacrifice, and He knew it; thus, because of the joy that was set before Him, He despised the shame and endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).

Because of all that Jesus did, we can have fellowship with the Father, enjoy the privilege of prayer, and bask in the hope of heaven. We have access to all spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3), and the only reason why is because Jesus was willing to do so much for us. Should we not be extremely appreciative? I hope that we will all be thankful, and that we will show it by telling as many as we can what He has done for us. If we do anything less than this, we are showing that we really do not appreciate Christ at all.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.