“[…] The goal of the
missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A
missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His
goal is to do the will of his Lord. In our Lord’s life, Jerusalem was the place
where He reached the culmination of His Father’s will upon the cross, and
unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with
Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried
through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where
He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the
slightest degree away from His purpose to go “up to Jerusalem.” “A disciple is
not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10:24). In
other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our
way to our “Jerusalem.” There will be works of God exhibited through us, people
will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show
total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going “up to [our]
Jerusalem.”” CHAMBERS
Have you ever done something for someone, perhaps at great
cost to yourself, and they treated what you did with ingratitude? Like a rug under their feet. It was nothing to them. Ingratitude is one of those things that can
stir up dark feelings in us. It can
cause you to question if perhaps you had made a mistake in helping in the
manner that you did. Maybe even make you
angry and not want to help in that way ever again. When Jesus healed the 10 Lepers, only one came
back and thanked him. Jesus asked ‘Where
are the other nine?’ (Luke 17:11-19) The one who came back was a Samaritan. There is a subtle point. The ones that you would think would be most
grateful … the Jews .. were not. It was
the one who was rejected by the Jews that showed his gratitude. What we do should be motivated by our desire
to do the Father’s will and not to do good things. If it is the latter, then it will matter to
us how people respond. If it is the
former, then our only concern is that we are doing the Father’s will not how
people respond to whatever it is that we did. How we respond to responses to our
Christian service will depend upon our motivation for doing whatever it is that
we have done. (John 6:38) Jesus said “For I have come down from heaven not to do
my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”
Here is a rule of thumb.
If ingratitude frustrates you or makes you want to not serve, understand
that you are not doing the will of the Father, but you are trying to be good on
your own. You need to check your motivation. It doesn’t matter how the world responds to
your service. Do it because it is the
Father’s will. Leave the rest up to
God. Think about it. ELGIN
Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)
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