Unappreciated Love and Ingratitude
Jesus was the love of God given to men. What took Jesus to the cross was love. He was love personified—pure, sacrificial, unwavering. Yet, on the day of His crucifixion, that love was rejected. Love endured the cross for the sake of humanity’s sins, but humanity failed to see it.
When love goes unappreciated, it will die eventually. As Jesus made His way to Golgotha, people hurled insults, threw objects, mocked, and spat on Him. They cursed love as it staggered beneath the weight of the cross through a bloodthirsty crowd. And in the end, love gave up its life. Jesus died, not because He was weak, but because He loved.
This was not the first time divine love was treated with contempt and ingratitude. In the Garden of Eden, man betrayed God’s love. That betrayal broke the heart of God. His response towards unappreciative love was grief and judgment, and so He drove man out of the garden.
Jesus’s earthly ministry also shows that love doesn’t always win people over. There were places He could do no miracles, not because He lacked power, but because the people lacked faith to appreciate Him as a gift from God (Mark 6:5–6). He warned us too: “Do not cast your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). That is, do not give what is precious to those who will not value it.
Love Demands a Response
Again, this is something we often fail to realise, or choose not to realise: the love of God puts a responsibility on us too. It’s not true that God’s love is without expectation. Christ died and resurrected, and He calls on us to appreciate this sacrifice of love and redemption so that we can be saved.
There is an expectation from us: to receive Christ, believe in His resurrection, and confess Him as Lord. As Scripture says:
“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” (Romans 10:9–10)
Love calls for a response. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That’s not just a beautiful statement; it’s a call to action. God’s love initiates, but our love is meant to reciprocate. We also have a part to play in making this divine relationship complete.
Even Jesus, who gave freely, showed that He expected gratitude. When He healed the ten lepers and only one returned to thank Him, He asked about the others. “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” (Luke 17:17). That question reveals that even though His love healed them freely, He expected a response of appreciation, not ingratitude. God’s love is free, but not void of expectation.
A Personal Understanding
Last year (2022) became one of the best years of my life, and it all began with a very simple New Year’s resolution: take good care of yourself. That was it.
It might sound easy, but for someone who has spent most of his life giving and sacrificing for others, it was a profound shift. I became so fed up with the fact that:
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Human beings easily forget.
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Even if they remember, many don’t care.
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You can choose them 50 times over yourself; they will still choose themselves 100 times over you.
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Human beings are selfish.
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They won’t appreciate your sacrifice; they’ll take it for granted.
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The more you sacrifice, the more they assume you are comfortable with it or have developed the capacity for it. And so when it becomes critical, you’re the one they’ll choose to betray and sacrifice.
Unappreciated love is the painful truth. True appreciation is not merely expressed in words; it’s reflected in consistent attitude and behaviour. If someone truly values you, their actions will show it.
Love Must Be Appreciated, or It Dies
Yes, it is good and noble to sacrifice for others. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). But love must be received and appreciated, or else it eventually dies. Even divine love, when consistently rejected, reaches a point of judgment.
Jesus died once for all, offering the greatest sacrifice of love. But that love demands a response: faith, repentance, and a life surrendered to Him. When we ignore or belittle this sacrifice, we make it meaningless in our lives, and on Judgment Day, there will be consequences.
Love is not sustained by words alone. It grows through appreciation, honor, and reciprocation. When love goes unappreciated, it withers. And when it dies, judgment follows. What God offers in Christ is too precious to be taken lightly. To reject it is to reject life itself.
A Judgment Call for Self-Care
So yes, my decision to care for myself in 2022 was, in a way, a judgment call. I chose to value what others had overlooked: myself. I stopped handing over my peace, time, and emotional energy to people who didn’t value or appreciate it. And in doing so, I discovered strength, peace, and freedom I never knew I had.
Sometimes, stepping back from people’s ingratitude is not bitterness; it’s wisdom.
