How To Respond To An Attitude Of Ingratitude

My Utmost For His Highest

“Paul’s idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul’s service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.” CHAMBERS

One of the things that I have struggled with in our life of service has been ungrateful people and how I respond to them.  What my inappropriate response toward ingratitude does is it causes me to examine my motivation for what I do.  Rarely has my frustration toward ungrateful people been because I thought they did not appreciate God.  No, it was because I thought they did not appreciate me.  Do you see the problem?   1 John 4:19 says “We love because he first loved us.”  Matthew 22:37-39 suggests that because we love God first, we will love others.  Loving others, and the service associated with it, is an expression of our love for God.  When we are confronted by ingratitude, since what we do is for God and not for them, although they are the benefactors, those who are ungrateful are really ungrateful toward God.

Luke 17:14-19 “When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.  Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

That is a gratitude rate of 10%.  Do you think Jesus asked himself "Why did I heal those others guys, they did not appreciate it!" Would you be satisfied with that or would you decide it just wasn’t worth the trouble?  Those people were not worth your effort and “sacrifice”.  If you think that way, your focus is on you and not one the One who sent you.  Don’t you suppose that God already knows what will happen?  And He sent you anyway.  We must not look at those He has sent us to serve, but at the One who did the sending.  Read Romans 12:1,2. ELGIN

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)