The Lone Thanker
Have you ever noticed the story about the ten lepers on the outskirts of a Galilean village that came to Jesus begging for His supernatural healing? (Luke 17:11-19) They were incurably infected with the cancerous disease of lepersy and were ostracized from family, friends and worship. These ten teach us some pointed lessons on what Thanksgiving is about. They called out to Jesus from a distance: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They saw Jesus with their very eyes, they recognized Him for who He was, Jesus, God’s Savior for sinners and Master, Lord. And yet, that is not Thanksgiving. You can know who Jesus is and talk with Him in prayer, but that’s not necessarily Thanksgiving. Jesus in care and compassion spoke and their healing transpired in minutes to their great fortune and surprise!
These ten men heard Jesus speak and they immediately obeyed what He said. You and I can hear the words of Jesus by reading His word or hearing a sermon from the Bible, but this is not Thanksgiving, no more than it was thankfulness from these ten. This ragged band of afflicted patients received a miracle in their bodies on that glad day. But God’s working in your life, whether great or small, is not Thanksgiving.
One of the ten newly healed patients stopped in his tracks and hastily made his way back to Jesus. He fell on his face in humility and loudly gave praise to God and thanks to Jesus for His miraculous act. Jesus’ first response was, “Where are the other nine?" Jesus went on to explain to this beaming, regenerated patient, the majority made no time to express gratitude; your response is evidence of your faith!
Thankfulness is making time to demonstrate and express gratitude for what God has done in one’s life. Perhaps too often in our world, our homes and churches we recognize our need for God’s working in our lives and we recognize Him as Savior and want His favor and miracles and are happy to be in His presence and receive some special provision, but sadly for one reason or another we fail to recognize and express our thanks. We fail to demonstrate gratitude and thereby rob God of His deserved glory.
May you and I be as the lone thanker that paused in his good fortune and remembered the source of His blessings. Let us bend our knees, humble our hearts, and profusely praise God for His plentiful provisions, His generosity and compassion toward us through His son, Jesus.
Happy Thanks-giving to you and yours from all of us here at BBN!