Luke 17:15,16 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
In ancient times, lepers were social outcasts because of their highly contagious disease. In this passage, ten lepers came to Jesus begging for mercy and He graciously healed them.
Can you imagine? These lepers had an awful disease. Their bodies were slowly deteriorating — and worse, they were shunned from their friends and family and forced to live in a community of only those who were too withering away. Suddenly merciful Jesus comes along and “poof!” the sickness leaves them! How life changing! These people must have been overjoyed! Now they could go back to their families, their homes, their communities and live normal lives!
But as I reread this story today something struck me. Only one of them returned to thank the Lord! But how often do we do the same? We get so focused on our blessing and forget about the One who gave it!
Just as the Samaritan returned to Jesus to thank and worship Him who had redeemed his life, we too must thank God — for every good and perfect gift comes from Him and He deserves all the honor and the glory! And as a matter of fact, one of the cornerstones of effective prayer is entering His gates with thanksgiving and praise. Let’s start thanking God for all His goodness toward us!
It’s easy to get caught up in the blessing — God has given us so much! But let’s be sure that we make daily habit of thanking God first!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Charles Swindoll said “Business (busy-ness) rapes relationships. It substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. It feeds the ego but starves the inner man.”
Another great preacher whose writings I love to read is John R. Rice. He wrote, "I once imagined I was in Heaven, walking along with the Angel Gabriel. I said, "Gabe, what is that big building over there?"
In the modern world, the work ethic is, achieve and produce by working longer and harder! The focus is on getting results through human effort -- we've become product oriented and the bottom line is......the bottom line! But God's way runs contrary to this approach -- His way is much more oriented toward process and relationship rather than performance and production.
The writer of Ecclesiastes was aware of cycles in nature, how they repeat themselves. Some have noticed another interesting historical cycle which awakens our awareness at this time of year. The dates April 15th-21th contain an interesting pattern. This is a time frame which has seen the birth of much havoc in the world. Historically this is when the birth of Rome and the Roman empire took place, the birth of Napoleon and more recently the birth of Hitler and Nazi Germany occurred.
As Israel celebrates Yom Ha'atzmaut – Independence day – Israelis are often reminded of the price that was paid for freedom. But today, in that spirit, I want to recall a time when a heavy price was paid for a translation of our Bible.
A friend writes: "My father did some pretty nasty things to me. But at the end of his life, as I kneeled by his bedside, I told him how thankful I was for every good thing he had done and every way he had blessed me, and there were many. We were good friends when he passed away." One of the greatest regrets you can avoid at the end of your life is the failure to praise others when they deserved it, (and even when they didn't).
Of course, the celebration of Passover for believers normally emphasizes the revelation of our Passover Lamb -- the Lamb of God, Yeshua, who was delivered up, a Lamb without blemish, and sacrificed in our place as an offering for our sins. As Israel celebrates deliverance from slavery, we celebrate deliverance from the bondage of sin. We celebrate knowing that death no longer has power over us since we pass from this temporal world into the eternal when we die.