IF YOU THINK SOMEONE ELSE IS...LOOK AT YOURSELF
It’s no coincidence that Webster’s dictionary describes ungratefulness with such words as "unpleasant", "distasteful", and "repellent". An ungrateful spirit is spoken of only twice in Scripture, both times in a negative context; however, there are over 100 scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments commanding us to be thankful for what God has done for us.
When it comes to being ungrateful, we could list off a few, or maybe more than a few, people in our lives whom we think need a lesson in gratefulness. If the thought of any of the people on your list brings on a sour taste in your mouth, or a snear to your lips, or a narrowing of your eyes, then stop right there. All of these are signs of the big three: bitterness, unforgiveness, and greed. Bitterness, unforgiveness, and greed go hand in hand with ungratefulness. You may be an ungrateful person yourself. Let's look at them separately.
BITTERNESS
It’s amazing how defensive we are about our anger. We caress it and suppress it so no one will see it and shame us into dealing with it. No one is allowed to rock our boat when it comes to the bitterness we harbor. It poisons our body and mind, spreading like a cancer that makes ours souls sick. And when your soul is sick, one of the symptoms is blindness. We’re blind to the love of people around us. Our perception is clouded by our anger. Our ability to perceive the investment others are making in us is damaged. We feel we’re just not getting what we need. The truth is, nothing sticks. Our hearts lack the proper texture to absorb the truth. Our hearts are hardened by our hatred.
We distance ourselves from others, even to the point of emotional and/or physical isolation. We call it “being a realist” or "using logic" but we’re actually desensitizing ourselves so we won’t get hurt again. We have no unmet expectations because we have no expectations. We have no dreams so we won’t be disappointed when they don’t come true. All the while, we’re harboring and hiding our bitterness behind a façade of detachment. We can't move forward. We're stuck.
Bitterness creates an illusion of control and power. It’s a form of hate. “Anger facing backwards.” Depression is described by the medical community in almost the same terms. It's known as “anger turned inward.” When it’s not dealt with, depression becomes bitterness. Inside-out anger. We usually don’t think of it that way, but doesn’t your bitterness give you a feeling of righteous justification? Don’t you feel you have every right to feel the way you do? Aren’t you indignant at the thought of what the other person has done to you? Your dignity has been besmirched! Your pride has been wounded! BEWARE! Bitterness is eating away at your soul, your will.
Everything in your life seems to revolve around that bitterness. It effects the way you act, talk, and think. Your health suffers, your relationships suffer. It contaminates you, your family, your friends.
Bitterness is the enemy of love. It makes you unforgiving. It makes you unwilling to give love unconditionally. After all, no one has given you a break. Why should you give them one?
Bitterness is a liar, the enemy of hope because it traps you in the past and makes you incapable of seeing a better future. It is also the enemy of faith because it makes you incapable of trusting in anyone but yourself and contaminates your relationship to God. It blinds us to the truth about who we are in Christ.
The truth is WE are the object of God’s love. He designed us to desire community, relationships, friendships, and acceptance. He especially wants us to give love, feel love, and be loved. That inborn yearning leads us to incredible extremes trying to find fulfillment.
Yet, in the back of your mind, you may be remembering that the only people who can hurt you deeply are the ones you allow to get close and intimate, to get deep inside your soul. The fact is, the more you love someone, the more vulnerable you are.
It’s the nature of intimate love to be vulnerable.
If we choose to be unforgiving when we get hurt, it shouldn’t be surprising that life loses it’s savor. The taste of disappointment is almost unbearable. The anger toward others, toward life, toward God increases until a hard shell of bitterness forms. Job 21:25 states, “Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.”
UNFORGIVENESS
When we are ungrateful for what God has done for us, we will refuse to forgive others, and unforgiveness will turn to bitterness. How can you appreciate and acknowledge the tremendous sacrifice God has made for you and still be unforgiving to someone else?
Thankfully, God can love even the ungrateful. Luke 6:35 states, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”
Have you ever thought, “God may be able to forgive them, but I can’t”?
Don’t lie. Admit it. We’ve all thought it. It’s sinful human nature to want to hold on to the position that we’re above God. We may not want to put it in those words, but lets call it what it is. God can forgive but we can't...no, we WON'T. After all, God is God. He can forgive because He is God and that's what God does. Right?
Aren't you really saying, ”I can’t forgive because my hurt is greater than God’s.” Like God didn’t really feel the pain of having His Son rejected, beaten, nailed to a tree, and tortured in our place even though He was completely innocent of any crime?
Life sucks and it won’t get better no matter what you do. There is no healing when there is no forgiveness and there is no forgiveness where there is no gratefulness.
The Bible is very clear about forgiving others when God has forgiven you so much. In the parable of the unmerciful servant, we see where an ungrateful heart leads and what God thinks about it.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. – Matthew 18:21-35
If bitterness and unforgiveness are not dealt with, they will turn into skepticism, which leads to cynicism and cynicism causes an emptiness of the soul that feels like the vacuum of space. We think our bitterness toward someone holds that person captive, when in reality we’ve trapped no one but ourselves.
Psalm 130:4 states, “But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” Why is God to be feared? Because He can forgive. He can forgive any crime because no crime is greater than He is. He’s the Aird Righ, the High King, King of Kings, the Sovereign Lord that Isaiah constantly refers to.
God requires us to forgive each other out of gratefulness to Him for forgiving us. He's pretty insistent on this. Right after Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” -- Matthew 6:15
GOD WILL NOT FORGIVE YOU. Why not? Because Scripture says just because we say we're Christians, doesn't mean we really are. If I decide to live in my garage and make funny noises like a car, that doesn't mean I'm a car. I'm just pretending. God doesn't want us to pretend. Not to Him, not to ourselves, and not to anyone else. It gives Him a bad reputation.
One Sunday after hearing about people losing their tempers in the parking lot, Rob Bell told his congregation, "If you are here and you aren't a Christian, we are thrilled to have you in our midst. We want you to feel right at home. But if you are here and you're a Christian and you can't even be a Christian in the parking lot, please don't go out into the world and tell people you're a Christian. You'll screw it up for the rest of us. And by the way, we could use your seat." (from Velvet Elvis)
We are to be known (recognized as geniune) by our fruits. What we do, how we act, how we live our lives, what comes out of our mouths. We are to prove we really are saved by forgiving others the same way God forgave us. In Zachariah’s song, he says,
"And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him,to give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heavento shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,to guide our feet into the path of peace." -- Luke 1:77
Did you catch that? John is to give the people knowledge about the salvation that God has provided for them through His mercy. This is what salvation is all about. The forgiveness of sins. In other words, to be saved is to have your sins forgiven. In order to be forgiven and prove your salvation is real, you are to manifest it by forgiving others. John goes on to tell how they would be saved. Not by might. Not by sword. But by forgivness of their sins. Their sins are fogiven, therefore they know what salvation is.
Salvation is defined as "(1) preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil; (2) a source, means, or cause of such preservation or deliverance; (3) deliverance from the power or penalty of sin; redemption." (Websters) Because God forgave us for rebelling against Him, we are saved.
It doesn't stop there. Even though the Bible specifically says you cannot be saved by works (Romans 9:31-33; Romans 11:5-6; Ephesians 2:9), Paul instructs the Philippians to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:11-13) If we have been saved, we are to act like it by forgiving others. If God is truly working in us, we will forgive as He has forgiven us.
GREED
In Uprising by Erwin Raphael McManus, ungratefulness is described as the ugly stepsister of greed. It is a manifestation of an abundance of the nasty stuff. Greed makes us endlessly disappointed in other people. Whatever they do for us is never enough. No one ever comes through for us. Everybody falls short of our expectations. What "little" they do is never enough and always a disappointment.
Unlike what most people think, the opposite of greed is NOT poverty. It’s generosity. The truly generous are the people who are the most grateful for what God has done for them. They are the most forgiving of others so they feel free to show mercy, even as God is merciful to us. They know everything belongs to God and they are secure in God’s love for them so they use their resources for the good and enjoyment of others.
Greed blinds us to the needs of others. Whatever we receive, we figure we deserve. It's centered in selfishness. Greed is all about ME. They owe ME. Life owes ME. God owes ME.
Definitely not the way God views things.
Acccording to Proverbs, a greedy man brings trouble to his family (15:27) and stirs up dissension (28:25). Greed can even tear down a country (29:4). It’s a very powerful temptation because it promises power and dominance over others, control over our lives.
It's said that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely", but actually absolute power does not corrupt, it reveals. Character qualities or deficits that were hidden when we were powerless, are exposed when we are empowered.
It's also true that the way we react under pressure reveals who we truly are.
Greediness is just one way to gain power. How we use power is determined by how much character we have and how that power was achieved. Character comes from God and power gained through greed will become a curse on ourselves and on others. The desire for more and the ability to seize it at will, destroys relationships, friendships, and eventually the one wielding the power.
SUMMARY
Ungratefulness is rooted in the sin of pride, just as bitterness, unforgiveness, and greed are. If we feel we are "owed" something by those around us (because we're special, abused, priviledged, under-priviledged, unfairly treated, weren't consulted, should have been asked, forced to comply, etc ad nauseam) then we will not be grateful for anything we have because what we have will pale in comparison with what we feel we deserve. That's unacceptable and unforgiveable and we will harbor resentment for not getting what we want. We will be greedy for more and more. We'll never be satisfied, of course, because we can't stop wanting more no matter how much we get. Deserving more. Demanding more. Bitter for not having it handed to us as our due.
It's a vicious cycle that can only be broken by exposure. Acts 26:17-19 states, "I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."
Isn't this saying that our sins have to be exposed (eyes opened and brought into the light) so we can forgive others first, and only then will our sins be forgiven? If our sins are not exposed, then we will not be forgiven of them and have a place among the sanctified. Sounds like we have to be ever vigilant against those deep, dark nooks inside where bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, jealousy, greed, and all other kinds of wickedness like to hide.
I don't know about you, but I don't like my sins exposed to the light, and most of us will do whatever it takes to keep the status quo and hide who we really are from the outside world. Our spiritual life rots from the core, effecting our health and relationships, especially our families who will be forced to suffer along with us.
Second Timothy 3:2 describes people in the end times as being “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power.”We are also told to “have nothing to do with them.” That’s a pretty strong admonition. Maybe it's the "birds of a feather" thing or maybe the "one rotten apple" or "you are who you associate with."
Galatians 6:7 says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." If God can't get you to repent by personal conviction, He's not at all adverse to exposing your deceit before the world for all to see. He'll even shorten your life if your sin contaminate others. Remember Exodus 20:12, "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." He wasn't kidding. To dishonor your parent is to dishonor God. To treat them with contempt is to hold God in contempt.
We all want to think we show proper gratitude to God, but lets face it, many times we don't act like it. We think we could have done a better job choosing the ten unchangeable things about ourselves (physical features, parents, race, etc.).
Criticizing yourself or anyone else for things that they have no control over is stupid. What's more, it's offensive to God and shows your lack of character by exposing your ungratefulness to Him for every breath you take.
Ask yourself, "Am I one of those people others are warned against? Am I sure?"
