In Luke Chapter 17 we have the well know story of the ten lepers who met Jesus and begged Him to have mercy on them. Their condition made normal life completely impossible for them, and they appealed to Jesus’ compassion to do something for them.
He tells them to go and show themselves to the priest and as they go they are taking a step of faith. A very significant one in that culture. They could have exposed themselves to the wrath of the clergy had they turned up leprous, but as they go they see the healing take place in their bodies. Only one, we are told, turned around and came back to Jesus. ’He praised God in a loud voice, threw Himself at Jesus feet and thanked Him’. NIV. This was no formality it was heartfelt gratitude and from a Samaritan.
Jesus response is twofold. First of all He asks about the nine who didn’t come back. Clearly giving thanks matters to Him. I wonder sometimes, how often I have thrown up an emergency prayer and then taken the answer for granted or attributed it to some natural circumstance that just happened to work out? I think, may be, we often don’t recognize Gods’ hand in our lives, and we miss something very important .
We once had a Christian leader who suggested to us that many of us don’t see so much of the miraculous in our lives, because, he said, the way you respond and receive one miracle probably affects the size of the next one and how soon it happens. I can’t quote scripture and verse for that, but I think what happened in the story next gives us an indication that our leader may have been right.
Jesus secondary response is to address the grateful Samaritan directly. He gives Him an extra blessing, and a little bit of teaching on how faith works. He affirmed that his faith in obeying and starting off towards the priests was key to his being healed. How wonderful must that extra encounter with Jesus have been for that man. As we give thanks to the Lord for things that He has done for us, we engage face to face with our wonderful Jesus. We carry on the dialogue as we rejoice with Him. We grow our relationship with Him beyond just having Him meet our needs.
Many believe, and I do too, that when Jesus sent this man on His way for the second time, he left with a far greater measure of healing than the first time. In the AV the translators have used the expression ‘your faith has made you whole’. I believe that every time the Lord answers our prayers His goal is not just to meet our needs but to ‘make us whole’, to enrich our relationship with Him and to impart more of Himself into our lives.
So let us not stint our giving of thanks. Let us thank Him when ever we can as effusively as we can. Thanking Him for all His blessings, large and small, physical, spiritual practical. Knowing that as we do, we give glory to God and we also increase our friendship with the Lord and His blessing on our lives, speeding us on to a greater measure of wholeness.
