LIGHT FOR A THANKFUL LIFE (5)

“And fell down on his face at His feet, GIVING HIM THANKS. And he was a Samaritan” – Luke 17:16

A least expected person – leper and Samaritan – exemplified LIGHT for a THANKFUL LIFE: “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, GIVING HIM THANKS. And he was a Samaritan. (Lk.17: 15-16). Ten lepers approached the Lord Jesus outside a village, loudly pleading with Him to heal them. In the ancient world, leprosy was a dreadful disease which hopelessly disfigured those who had it, and permanently cut them off from normal society. Every leper yearned to be healed. In an instant Jesus restored them all to perfect health – but only one came back and thanked Him. The others left without a word of thanks, their minds preoccupied with themselves, gripped with a spirit of ingratitude.

A true hero of thanksgiving who received remarkable attention from the Lord, the leper showed what sincere thanks to God should look like. Two principles of godly thanksgiving: (a) Our Lord delights in being thanked. He deserves our deliberate, intentional thanks for the good things He has done; hence, He wondered where the other nine were (v.17). If we mortals like to be thanked for what we do, why wouldn’t the Lord? The greatest thing we owe an eternal debt of thanks to Him for is our Salvation – and all other things He graciously does for us; (b) Thanksgiving should be in the context of faith in our Lord. While we should thank other people – family members and friends for the good they do to us, thanksgiving must be in the greater context of faith in God through Jesus Christ: “Your Faith has made you well” (v.19b).

Here are four lessons on the Thanksgiving that pleases the Lord:

A Request for what we need from Him: “And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” We please the Lord when we come Him and clearly ask what we want of Him. In true thanksgiving, we need to be specific and ASK from the Lord what we want.

A Realization of what He has done for us: We need to be paying attention and actually take note of His answer to our request (v.14; Mt.7:7).

A Return to give thanks to Him: All ten were healed and went to the priests. They did their duty, according to the law, but only one returned to heartily thank the Lord (v.15-16). And Luke made a special point of the fact that he was a Samaritan – a despised foreigner (vv.17-18).

A Report to others of His Grace toward us: “Arise, go your way...” (v. 19a). His way was to go forth and be a Testimony and a Witness!

May we render to our Lord the thanks He is due for our Salvation – and for everything else that He does for us, as we truly please Him!