The Refusal to Appreciate

Please read Genesis 31:38-42. (The link will open in a new window).

Please read John 5:12-15. (The link will open in a new window).

The Indians often aided the early Jamestown settlers, bringing them corn and bread in their desperate plight. Later, the settlers traded copper for corn—they offered the Indians an inch square of copper for a bushel of corn. When the settlers grew prosperous, they sold corn to the Indians, trading four hundred bushels for a mortgage on all their lands.

Both Generals Crook and Miles used Apache scouts to hunt and bring Geronimo to surrender. Yet, when the warring Apache were sent to Florida, all the faithful scouts were sent with them, their faithful service to the government forgotten.

When David Livingstone died, his two faithful servants, Susi and Chuma, carried his decomposing body for nine months and a thousand miles. Yet, on arriving on the coast, they were rudely shoved aside as white men assumed responsibility.

God appreciates an attitude of gratitude. The presence of gratitude reflects our humility as certainly as its absence proves our pride and egotism. Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. But the shame he experienced should now be forgotten by the greater joy his disciples bring him, when they say thanks—and live like they mean it. It is time his disciples crown him in their personal lives.

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
Used by permission. All rights reserved.