Rom. 12:10 ... "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor."
You owe it to yourself most of all to be grateful and express meaningful, convincing appreciation when someone gives you something or does a favor for you. When you receive something like that and show no recognition of what motivated the giving, you prove yourself unworthy of it. A person is giving you a part of their life (as explained in a previous article), and you show no sign you are touched by it. This reflects an entrenched attitude of selfishness, which I am convinced is the origin of all sin. It projects the idea that, "I am first and most important, and everything is for me. I owe you no gratitude, because you are only doing what for me is natural ... getting!" There are now millions of people on public wel-fare in this country, but few of them feel any gratitude. They think the country owes them what they get, and they are never satisfied. Rather, they want more, always more, and ... often even demand it.
Paul dealt with this very attitude of selfishness and ingratitude among the Christians of the church in Corinth. They had received a great deal at the expense of the time and even the sacrifice of others. Those gifts had enlarged their welfare and lifted them up, but they did not acknowledge it. Rather they took pride in their advancement and began to feel superior. So, Paul admonished them in I Cor. 4:7-8, "Who regards you as superior? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did not receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" That is amazing! The riches those Christians had was given to them; they had not earned them by work and merit. But once they had them in their possession, they boasted of having them and felt superior.
About 20 years before I moved to the city where I now live, I came one day to visit a gentleman about his possession of certain material in which I was interested. He said something I have not forgotten after the passage of 45 years: "I got this material by the generosity of others. I have it because they gave it, not because I obstained it myself. So, I owe it to them and take no credit for having it." It was intellec-tual property, and he could have put a price on it. But he did not and willingly shared it with me. This contrasts with so many people who only share what they have received as a gift by putting a big price on it. If you gain access to it otherwise and use it, they will sue you for as much as they can because you have diminished their personal domain a little. In contast, some intellectual material carries this gener-ous offer: "If this will benefit you, use it freely. For that was how I was blessed to get it."
Note: There is much more to be written on this subject, but I hope that in these 7 articles I have made the case convincingly that ingratitude is a sin derived from selfishness. I hope these articles will produce both in myself and every reader a sense of obligation to express the kindness of gratitude to those who give us a part of their life in the form of a gift or helpful service. It is unto this goal I have written and published these articles, and not just to publish something on a blog for the sake doing it.
