THE BENEFITS OF BEING THANKFUL (PART 2)
TEXT:
"And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger."
(Luke 17 verses 17 to 18, King James Version).
Thanksgiving serves to excite or to provoke gracious moments from God. This is so because, like I said in part 1 to this series, the Lord is pleased with it. Apart from thanksgiving being a show of gratitude to God, it serves to glorify Him also. Like we noted earlier, through thanksgiving, you acknowledge God as the Source of your blessings; bespeaking that all was by His ability and not by your efforts. By and large, thanksgiving as an attitude serves to exclude pride. It's an act of humility towards God.
There's something significant to learn from the story of the ten lepers that met with the Lord Jesus in Luke chapter 17. They'd cried to Him for healing and He'd asked them to do something most people would not want to do. He'd asked them to act healed by showing themselves to the priests, whose duty it was according to the law of Moses to declare them healed. Like I said, most of us wouldn't want to do this. But as Christians, we demonstrate faith by acting on the Word of God. We are doers of the Word (John 13 verse 17; Romans 2 verse 13; James 1 verses 22 to 25). The moment when Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests, they still all had their leprosy on them. But as they acted on His Word, they discovered that they were healed of their disease. Today, when we ask people to act healed for the fact that Jesus took their infirmities, bore their sickness and by His stripes they were healed (Matthew 8:17 & 1st Peter 2 verse 24), they find it difficult to comprehend. Till date, failure to mix God's Word with faith remains the bane of many children of God (Hebrews 4 verse 2).
As the ten lepers discovered that they were healed, the one who was a stranger, a Samaritan, returned to the Lord to give Him thanks.
"And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole." (Luke 17 verses 17 to 19).
No doubt, God delights in thanksgiving with the result that it may serve to excite or to provoke gracious moments from Him toward us. It's amazing that out of ten lepers that were healed, only one returned to render thanks to the Lord. In other words, out of the ten lepers that were healed, nine didn't return to give thanks, which depicts that 90% of them exhibited ingratitude towards the Lord. For this, the Lord Himself was astonished; therefore He asked "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?"
My question is, have men not become increasingly unthankful in these last days? (see 2nd Timothy 3 verse 2). I see the return of this one to give thanks as an extraordinary act, differentiating him from the rest nine. Like I have said repeatedly before, extraordinary measures from us towards God have the tendency to touch His tender feelings to do us good. For returning to give thanks, Jesus told him that his faith had made him whole.
Now, leprosy causes parts of the body to deteriorate and to fall off eventually. Limbs and toes are mostly affected among other parts of the body. As the account goes, all the ten lepers in this story were healed; meaning that apart from the fact that the disease wasn't anymore in their bodies, it also did lose the power to cause further damage to their bodies. But Jesus told the thankful man that his faith had made him whole. The implication of this was that the damage that the disease had done to his body became repaired and those parts were fully restored (Matthew 12 verse 13).
Most probably, the damaged fingers and toes grew back, with no trace of the disease found anymore. This wasn't the case with the other nine lepers that failed to return to give thanks. They were simply healed. There's a whole lot of difference between being healed and being made whole. This is what thanksgiving will do for you! Be thankful at all times and God will show you greater blessings, greater mercies and greater kindness as a result thereof, in Jesus name.
PRAYER:
Father, You are forever worthy of my thanksgiving. I pledge to return all thanks and glory to You for what You do in my life, in Jesus name.