Ingratitude

As much as God loves when His people are grateful, He hates when they are ungrateful. Ingratitude is a sin that underappreciates and devalues what you have, or have been given. Gratitude is an attitude of appreciation under any circumstance. Gratitude means expressing thankfulness and being appreciative of daily life, even when nothing exciting happens. Ingratitude is expressing dislike for daily life. It is a willful ignorance of the simply blessings that happen in daily life. Unexpressed gratitude is still ingratitude. When God’s people take for granted all that God has provided and given, it leads to a callus heart.

Ingratitude is associated with unbelievers in the Bible. Romans 1:21-22, For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. Paul explained that an attitude of ungratefulness expresses a heart that is closed off to God’s wisdom. These people were unthankful toward God and rejected His goodness. Instead they exchanged the goodness of God for worthless speculations of human wisdom. 2 Timothy 3:2, For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful. This describes how people will be in the End Times. People are in a sad state when they cannot appreciate anything. This is the opposite of how a believer thinks. The amazing reality is that God still allows these ungrateful people to live and even receive His goodness (Luke 6:35).

There are a few examples in the Bible where people show ingratitude. One occasion was when Jesus healed ten lepers. Luke 17:17-18, Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine — where are they? “Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” Jesus healed all ten lepers but none of them came back to give glory to God, except the one. Jesus says where are they? Where did the other nine go? Jesus doesn’t ask this because He doesn’t know where they went, rather it is a rhetorical question of amazement that they did not come back and give thanks. They were too consumed with themselves to thank Jesus for His wonderful compassion.

There is another scenario in the Old Testament when the people of Israel were ungrateful. After the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites traveled through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Numbers 21:4-5 records, The people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Rather than being grateful for their new-found freedom, the Israelites began to grumble and become critical of God and Moses. They complained first that there was no food and later complained for the manna that God did provide. The Israelites were short-sighted, focused only on their immediate circumstances and not trusting God. Their attitude was ungratefulness and as a result God brought judgment. To God, an ungrateful attitude is sin, which provokes Him to anger. Believers have to fight against falling into the sin of ingratitude for it will reap ugly results and cause untold misery.