>”But, above all, I want to emphasise that this element of praise is the absolute essential in Christianity. Christians are men and women who, before everything else, are conscious that they owe everything to the grace of God. The apostle Paul has put it finally for us in these words: ‘But by the grace of God I am what I am.’ (1 Cor 15:10). He owes it all to God. And that is why he praises God.
O, let us examine ourselves! This is the one thing in life and in the world that we cannot afford to take for granted. It is impossible for you and for me to have a religion in which we feel no sense of gratitude to God. My religion may be something that I, as it were, carry with me in a bag; it may be something which is nothing more than a kind of self-admiration society. I am glad that I do pay my respects to God and I think I am a good man or woman because I do it. I am really worshipping myself for being good, and not worshipping God.
Never let us confuse church membership with true Christianity. You can be a church member without being a Christian, and if your Christianity is merely a matter of membership of a church, or even your work in the church, if it lacks this sense of gratitude to God, if it is what you are doing and what you are, rather than your praise to him, then it is not true New Testament Christianity.”~Martin Lloyd Jones