From a little book called Basic Christianity, its author, John Stott, writes this:
“You can become a Christian in a moment, but not a mature Christian. Christ can enter, cleanse, and forgive you in a matter of seconds, but it will take much longer for your character to be transformed and molded to his will. It takes only a few seconds for a bride and bridegroom to be married, but in the rough-and-tumble of their home it may take many years for two string wills to be dovetailed into one. So, when we receive Christ, a moment of commitment will lead to a lifetime of adjustment.” (p. 119)
Stott reminds us that maturity is a process, a lifelong task involving many ‘adjustments’---though that might be a weak way of putting it, speaking of adjustments. Our maturity is threatened by our own incompletion and willful rebellion, our host culture, and forces greater than ourselves. So instead of speaking of adjustments, true as that is, the old baptismal liturgies spoke of 'battling' or 'contending' against ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil.’ Assuredly, something has been settled: our status before God. We are new creations in Christ. This is our new and basic identity. And this is God’s doing, not ours. By God's gracious inititative, we have new access to God, that can only be described as being born from above or born again; as being grafted into a new vine; as being adopted. Something has been accomplished in us and for us—by the living God--but not finished. We are not yet mature in Christ.
We are being remade so that we attain the full stature of Christ, as Paul phrases it (Ephesians 4:13). And this, too, is the work of God in us. So, when we turn to the lifelong project of “Making Our Life One Great Big Thanksgiving to God,” the New Testament urges us to keep the Holy Spirit in view. Without reference to the Holy Spirit, the whole project might be placed on the wrong foundation. Indeed, as a confession, I’ll admit that I began my thinking for teaching about this project with how important it is to begin and end the day with thanksgiving to God, and offering that as practical advice, a place to start. Shape the habit, and the habit will shape us. I still think that is wise counsel, and I still put it forth as good advice. Don't let a day, even an hour go by, without thanking God. The danger, however, is that when a practice is urged on from the start, that we might see ourselves as thrown back solely on our own resources, unaided, and asked (nagged?) to be grateful.
There is a much stronger sense, coming from the New Testament, of thaksgiving being about getting caught up in the life of God in the Spirit. The first chapter of The Letter to the Ephesians describes, in its opening thanksgiving, what we are to be thankful for and at the same time describes this as the reality into which we have been drawn. It has the content of thanksgiving and is itself a thanksgiving. Written by Paul or ‘Paul’s best disciple’ (as one scholar puts it) the Christian has been ‘sealed with the promised Holy Spirit’ which ‘guarantees’ that God project of salvation will prevail. From ‘before the foundation or the world’ we have been chosen in Christ, so we see that our conversion in him is the outworking of the eternal plan of God in which we have been ‘destined in love,’ ‘filled with every spiritual blessing,’ made ‘holy and blameless before him’ and caught up ‘in the riches of his grace’ and in the ‘praise of his glorious grace.’ Praise is a form or thanksgiving and this passage is an instance of praise while describing how we each (the personal dimension) are caught up in something greater than ourselves. This is where we might best begin our thinking about making our life a great big testimony of gratitude to God, namely, to this God who has come to us and brought us into a set of new dynamics of living.