Proper Appreciation – Sunday, July 18, 1982
One day as Jesus Christ roamed into a certain village, ten lepers approached him begging to be cleansed. Christ told them to pass in front of the priest and indeed when they did, they were healed. Nine rushed away, jubilant and self-centered, but one returned to the Lord to give thanks. And Jesus said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?”1 It was a plaintive question, typical of a lifetime of being used and then forgotten. But what is most interesting is that though Christ noticed the lepers’ lack of appreciation, He did not remove the gift. How many others were healed who hurried off, forgetting the healer? How many beneficiaries of His kindness watched mutely while He was tried and crucified?
“As I have loved you,” He said, “Love one another.”2 And His unceasing service regardless of proper appreciation teaches us something about the kind of love He means. Whenever we begin to lessen our acts of kindness and service to others because we do not feel we have been properly appreciated, perhaps it is time to question our motives. Do we do our good acts to be noticed of men? Do we serve for self-aggrandizement? Pats and praises for our gifts to others have been sweet, but when we begin to give our gifts merely to receive them, we have lost something still.
There is always the danger that our service may become calculated, our kindness tainted with self. Or worse if we do not believe we have been rightfully thanked and rewarded, we may cease our service altogether. Hinging our concern for others on their notice of it makes our love as transient as a summer snow. It is the same folly that affects those who stop obeying the Lord’s commandments because they failed to see some immediate reward in it.
We may not, in fact, always be appreciated or thanked for the good things we do. That is a reality in every life. But let us not cease to love and serve. It is those who can look into a universe that seems almost devoid of the Lord and still pray, who have faith in Him.
It is those who can serve even him who turns away without a backward glance who have really learned to love.
“Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” And then Christ continued to serve not in stingy spoonful’s, waiting for each thanks, but in feasts where many of those who supped would never thank at all.
1 New Testament, Luke 17:17
2 New Testament, John 13:34
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July 18, 1982
Broadcast Number 2,761