It is painful when your spouse, your child, or your friend, forgets the good things you have done for him or her and accuses you of being uncaring. Some people choose to forget the good things you have done for them but rather will accuse you of bad things that you have not done.
Ingratitude is everywhere, in all generations, and among all peoples. Even in the Bible, we read of people being ungrateful to God.
People can be selfish and quick to abuse kindness. They quickly forget the kindness that you have done for them. And will swear you have never done anything for them. They will even gang up with people who seek your downfall.
No matter how many times you help them, when you are unable to help them, then they will forget any good thing you ever did for them.
It happened to me several years ago. I have been slashed by the tongues of people I have helped feed. People I have aided have turned against me and even denied that I have ever helped them.
Fortunately for me, some residents knew what I did to those people who had turned around to falsely accuse me.
One resident could not hide his astonishment. He said to me in astonishment, “What? I can’t believe what I am hearing from this person! This person who is accusing you was the person who hailed and praised you for being an angel. Whenever you helped him, he would tell me and shower praises on you. Today he denies you ever helped him. I find it difficult to believe that this is happening. Fear man!”
Ingrates don’t care even if for very good reasons you cannot help them when they need your help. They choose to forget that you were the same angel who helped them in their times of need.
Ingrates are never satisfied – they don’t remember any good deed you did for them.
Even if you have ever saved them from death, and paid their debts for them, they will decide to forget your kind deeds when you are not able to continue helping. They will call you stingy and evil. They will not recollect that you had been a benefactor to them and to their families when they were hungry and needed help.
Most people are generally not appreciative. While you are trying to please them, they are accusing you. They use all the negative descriptions they can against you.
God noted this about the human character in Genesis 6:5,
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (KJ2000)
Perhaps you have also been a victim of such people as I have.
When that happens, the first thing that comes to mind is to swear not to help anybody again.
But if the Spirit of God indwells you, you cannot resist the urge of the Spirit to demonstrate the character of God, your Father. You will obey the urgings of the Spirit of God to do good to both the thankful and the unthankful (Matthew 5:45; Luke 6:35-36).
The ingrate cannot appreciate the good things you do for him or her. He or she rather complains that your help is not good enough. They are always complaining and whining. They think it is their right and so they demand good deeds from people while they will not stretch a hand to help anyone. Some will not say even say, “Thank you,” for what you do for them. They think the world owes them good deeds and favors.
They always want more and are never satisfied. They find fault with you no matter how hard you try to please them.
You can be with them for forty or fifty years and they will never remember anything you did for them. Their mantra is always, “He or she has never done anything for me.” Of course, they are lying. You did so much for them. Ingratitude has filled their hearts, so they don’t appreciate anything that anyone has done for them.
They blame you for the mistakes they make themselves. They don’t blame themselves for their own mistakes. And so, it is always someone else who is the reason they are not successful in life.
However, they are quick to take the glory of your success and wear it. They attribute your access to their efforts even when they did everything possible to make you fail. They fail to remember that they were persuading you to stop striving because they didn’t believe you could be successful. Now that you are successful, they want to claim your glory.
Though they themselves are not successful in life, they are always pointing and laughing at people they think are not successful.
They don’t care about how you feel. They care only about themselves. They will do everything to make you miserable so they can be happy.
They are always praising themselves even when everyone sees them as failures.
Their hearts are filled with hate and bitterness. They don’t have compassion for anyone. Yet they believe they are the only compassionate ones in the world.
When you do something from conscience to help them, they praise you for your loyalty. They will say you have done what people of conscience do. They will call you a patriot for doing that. They praise you and say you are Godfearing. Because only the Godfearing will have the conscience to do for them what you did.
But if one of them also does what you have done, if the help or good deed is not for them but for others, they will shout on top of their voices, and condemn. They will call him or her a traitor.
They are quick to forget that some people responded to their conscience and took a similar stance to help them, vote for them, or agree with them. When others did that for them, they did not reckon that to be a betrayal. They admired the boldness and integrity of the people who took bold stances to support their cause. They prayed to God to send people like them who, for the sake of conscience, will be bold to do and say what is right.
But now that one of them, too, has done what you did, they interpret the action to be a betrayal. If it is coming from their camp, from their own people, then it is a betrayal.
That is how the world treats us.
It is good if it is against their opponent, but bad or treachery if it is against them. If it is against them, then disagreement becomes a betrayal.
Conscience can make a person do what a person believes is right, even if it might be against the person’s own friends, relations, or even interests.
Your spouse may refuse to do what you want and think it is his or her right to do so. But when you, too, do the same, then your spouse may feel hurt and accuse you of betrayal. That is the color of ingratitude.
They call people traitors when people change their minds to do what they had earlier agreed to do.
Perhaps, after thinking through, their conscience spoke to them. And because conscience is powerful, they rescind their decision to go ahead with what they had previously agreed to do. But ingrates don’t see it that way.
We must learn to persuade and not compel people against their will.
People may call you a fool if you are very tolerant. If you are someone who forgives people for treating you negatively, people may regard you as a fool.
People can forgive the evil done them because of the Spirit of God indwelling them. If you allow the Spirit of God to operate in you, you can forgive evil people others think do not deserve forgiveness. You can forgive any evil done to you if God’s Spirit of love and compassion operates fully in you.
I am happy, and I thank God that I live in this world despite all the evils and other negative things happening. I allow God’s Spirit to direct me in all that I do.
I have the heart to forgive all who trespass against me. Because of that some people think I am a fool. They don’t understand that I am a peacemaker, and my motivator is Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Wherever God places you in this world, whichever community God places you in, know that you are God’s representative. God expects you to represent Him. To be good, and kind, show compassion to everyone, and help people who need help.
However, you can do that according to your capacity, the ability that God has endowed you with. God does not expect you to do beyond what you are able. God will provide the means, the capacity. Do what you can do and leave the rest to God.
Don’t be worried about what people say. If you don’t have the capacity to do beyond what you are doing to help people, God knows. What people say in their ignorance does not change God’s perception of you.
Therefore, in the village, in the city, and wherever you are, God expects you to do your part as He wants. Fulfill God’s purpose for creating and placing you where you are now.
Don’t disappoint God.
Show your gratitude to God by doing good, being kind, and representing God in all aspects of your life. Do not be conformed to the world. Rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind to know what God wants and expects you to do (Romans 12:2).
We read in Ephesians 4:22-24,
22 … put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (NKJV)
From this passage, we learn that the brain restructures and reframes to adapt to new information we feed it.
Conduct (that is, your manner of life, your behavior) is changed if you renew the spirit of the mind. Change your mental attitude; learn what God wants you to do.
Your belief creates or destroys. You become a new personality by reframing your thinking and adopting a new way of doing things. We are, therefore, instructed in Ephesians 4:24-32 to feed the mind with positive thoughts, and good ideas, and act on them.
The spirit of the mind is renewed as we feed the mind with new thoughts and actions (Ephesians 4:23).
The body obeys the mind by putting into action what the mind suggests. And so, we feed the brain with new thoughts or ideas. The brain then forms new patterns for the new behaviors that we perform in accordance with the actions suggested by our thoughts or minds.
We learn in Romans 8 that God’s Spirit indwelling us transforms us into the spiritual nature of God’s Spirit. However, we cannot advance into spirituality if we cannot believe and obey. Our beliefs dominate our lives. Your beliefs create or limit your potential. Furthermore, the spirit in your body directs your body and transforms you to become a new person, living a new way.
The body, which is the temple of your spirit, is also the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). The Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit, pours into your spirit when God pours his Spirit upon you. Just as milk blends with water when you pour milk into it, and both become one, so our spirit is changed to adapt to the nature of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 6:17, tells us, “But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. (NIV)
We cannot reinterpret the statement any other way. If the Holy Spirit wanted us to understand it differently, the Holy Spirit would have inspired the writer to use the appropriate words.
The Bible simply tells us that God’s Spirit, indwelling your body, makes you spiritual. Just as the milk turns or transforms the water to be whitish or creamy. The water does not change or transform itself. It is the milk that changes or transforms the water.
Therefore, allowing God’s Spirit full access enables the actualization of the Spirit in our spirits and lives. The presence of the Spirit in us actuates the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.
Therefore, Jesus said,
“… you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” (Acts 1:8; NIV)
The Spirit in the body demonstrates God’s presence and power in the human person.
On earth, Jesus (the Word of God), lived in a body and demonstrated God’s power in the Spirit.
Your intention – the beliefs in the mind – starts working when you act on your faith.
Therefore, Ephesians 4:23, advises us to be renewed in the spirit of the mind.” That means, changing your thoughts, changing your mental attitude.
Therefore, in Ephesians 4:22-24 we read,
22 … put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (NKJV)
As inferred earlier, conduct (behavior) is changed by the renewal of the spirit of the mind, by renewing your mental attitude.
The brain can restructure and reframe to adapt to new information. Therefore, we are instructed in Ephesians 4:24-32 to feed the mind with positive thoughts, and good ideas, and act on them.
The spirit of the mind is renewed as we feed the mind with new thoughts and actions (Ephesians 4:23). The spirit then becomes renewed or changed (or transformed). The body has the capacity to attract and put into action what the mind suggests. The brain then forms new patterns for the new behaviors according to the actions suggested by our thoughts.
In Romans 8, we read that God’s Spirit indwelling us enables us to become spiritual. So, it is the Spirit of God that makes us spiritual or transforms our spirit to become like God.
Our beliefs dominate our lives. Our belief enhances or limits our potential in us. The Spirit living in the body directs the body and transforms it into spirituality.
As mentioned earlier, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). And God’s Spirit, indwelling your body, makes you spiritual. The Spirit in the body is God’s presence and power in the human body.
This is demonstrated in the Bible when, on earth, Jesus (the Word of God), demonstrated God’s power through the Spirit in his human body.
We read of the ingratitude of the Children of Israel in the Bible. They repeatedly showed ingratitude towards God. They accused God of neglecting them. They did not remember anything God had done for their fathers or for them. They forgot that God parted the Red Sea for them to cross to safety, while he drowned their enemies. He drowned the Egyptians to save the Children of Israel. But they forgot what God did for them.
Another example of ingratitude is in Luke 17:11-18,
11 Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” (NKJV)
His own people, the Jews, did not return to show gratitude for what God had done for them. They took it for granted. The foreigner, a Samaritan, rather showed appreciation for what God did for them. The Samaritan returned to show his gratitude to Jesus.
Jesus wondered why the others did not remember to return and show their appreciation.
As indicated earlier, ingratitude is not new. It has been in existence since the creation of the world.
Adam and Eve displayed ingratitude toward God when they listened to the serpent rather than believing God. They wanted more and ended up losing God’s protection. Their ingratitude caused their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Furthermore, they lost the abundance that existed in the Garden of Eden.
Psalm 78:11-33 outlines the example of the ingratitude of the Children of Israel.
Your intention – the beliefs in the mind – starts working when you act on your faith. That is why the Bible advises us to be renewed in the spirit of the mind (Ephesians 4:23).
Let us learn to be grateful and appreciate what people have done for us. Don’t be an ingrate. Let the Spirit of God help you to appreciate the good things that people have done for you.
Be thankful to God and allow the Spirit of Christ to indwell you.