Where Are The Nine?

It is the season of thanksgiving. We traditionally set aside a day to celebrate our blessings. We are thankful for family. For our jobs, our relationships, our good health. Perhaps our financial status in life. A warm place to lay our head at night. We could go on and on and list many reasons to be thankful to our God.

Sadly, it is easy to forget the many times that God has shown up when we called out to Him. Don’t we often call out for help in a crisis? Help me! If you will bring me to the shore, safe from the crashing waves of this storm, I will read your word daily, lift my voice to You in praise, daily…Hey! I will even attend Your house. Just help me!

Isn’t it also true, many times, once on the steady ground of rescue, promises made while thrashing about in the midst of our storm, are forgotten?  We go about our lives as before. Once again, able in our own minds, to handle whatever comes our way…Until…The next storm.

Gratitude is defined as the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.  We may tend to think that God doesn’t really need our gratitude. I mean, He is almighty God. Right? He’s not going to miss my gratitude for the little bits of goodness that fall on me. He is so busy with all that is going on in the world that He won’t think twice about my absence on the bench of thankfulness and praise. Wrong!

Scripture tells us Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. He reached the border of Galilee and Samaria.

12 As he entered a village there, ten lepers stood at a distance, 13 crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  Luke 17:12 (NIV)

We have all stood at a distance and cried out for help. Have mercy on me, on my family. We are the us in this scripture. These lepers were in very dire straits. They were separated from the “living.” Shunned and segregated. Leviticus 13:2-3, tells us that a person suspected to have leprosy had to be examined by the priest. If found with the disease, he was to wear torn clothes, let the hair of his or her head hang loose. Cover the lip and cry out “unclean, unclean.”  He or she must live alone and his camp shall be outside the city gates.  A very graphic illustration of the destruction and debilitation of sin in our life. It separates us from the living.

Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests. As they walked they were healed. One of them returned back to Jesus and fell on the ground before Him.

15 One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” 16 He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan. Luke 17:15 (NIV)

That short sentence at the end of the verse holds a wealth of information. Jews and Samaritans did not congregate. They did not like each other. Hatred between them was fierce and went all the way back to the patriarchs. Yet, Jesus, healed him along with the other Jews. Jesus was a Jew yet He healed the outsider, the one reviled not only because he was a leper but also because he was a Samaritan.

The other nine cried out the same plea as this Samaritan. They were healed as they walked away from Jesus, just as the Samaritan. Yet he was the only one, realizing the blessing He had just received, who turned and ran back to the Savior and fell at His feet.  The nine kept walking. We can imagine they went on about their lives without turning to acknowledge the One who had changed their life. The one who brought them back into the fold of the living. Ingratitude is defined as the lack of proper appreciation or thanks for something, such as a kind or helpful act.

~Thought For Today~

It occurs to me this morning that I shouldn’t need a reason to bow before my God every chance I get. Just the mere fact that I woke and have taken another breath gives reason to be thankful and offer praise to the One responsible for that. The big storms have come and will no doubt come again. If we stay thankful in the little things, when those big storms come our gratitude will come quickly as well. He has helped me too many times. I would never want Him to wander where I was, why He hadn’t heard my words of gratitude to him in a daily conversation with Him, or seen my face in His house.

My prayer is that we all find our season of gratitude with rememberance of the many blessings we have received. Not just the survival of events of life we class as moments in crisis, but all the hundreds of smaller things. The things we often take for granted.

~Scripture For Today~

Luke 17:17-19

17 Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.” (NIV)

~Prayer For Today~

Hello Father! We praise You for all things. All blessings. Even for the storms that will ultimately strengthen us. The wisdom for the future. We pray You never find us wandering away, going on about our business as though we are self sufficient and able to go it alone. We have tried that Father. Our time without Your presence was very difficult. Thank you for sending Jesus. Our way to complete redemption from sin. We do not deserve the grace You have offered through Jesus, yet it is ours for the asking. Forgive us of our sin. In Jesus’ name. Amen.