What should our response be to being the recipients of gifts from God?

Kevin Swanson explains in this video that God has given us many gifts. Gifts of good health, a spouse, children, and material gifts. It is important that we do not worship the gifts, but rather the Giver. We appreciate the Giver. We worship the Giver more than or in place of enjoying the gifts.

Our response to the gifts God has given us is to enjoy those gifts, to enjoy God, the giver, and then respond in love and gratefulness to Him.

James 1:17 (NKJV) - "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

To enjoy God is to enjoy the giver as well as the gifts, but to enjoy the giver more than the gifts. We receive the gifts of the body. We receive the gifts of our spouse or our children and all of the wonderful material gifts that God has lavished upon us. That's good, we receive those gifts, but we do not worship the gifts. We don't idolize the gifts.

We appreciate the giver. We worship the giver more than or in place of enjoying the gifts or to the ultimate degree. So I'll give an example of this. A father gives a bike to a son on Christmas Day. Several days later he walks into his son's room and sees his son kneeling before the bike which has been put up on the wall and he's worshipping his bike.

Obviously ridiculous, we don't want our sons worshipping the gift but you know the father would be rather upset by that because The idea is that the son be grateful for the gift and the relationship with the father be improved Because of the son's gratefulness to the father for the giving of the gift so he appreciates gift He uses the gift he rides his bike around the neighborhood He delivers newspapers on the bicycle, and then he responds to the Father in gratefulness. So that's what God wants for us. God doesn't want us worshiping the gifts of food, alcohol, sexuality, or what have you. God wants us just receiving these gifts in moderation of course so that we don't give way to idolatry and come to the point that we're worshiping the gift rather than the giver. So what we want is to be receiving these gifts as from God who is good and then appreciating his goodness responding to him in love and enjoyment.

God is just simply saying receive these gifts from me enjoy these good gifts as receiving from me realize that I am in relationship with you and I'm giving you these things because I love you. And our response, therefore, is to enjoy that, to enjoy God, the giver, and to enjoy his gifts as coming from him, and then to respond in love and gratefulness to him.