During the holidays we often congregate with close family and friends. Gifts are exchanged, laughs are shared and large amounts of food are devoured. We are grateful for these times and show our appreciation and thanksgiving. Thoughts of thanksgiving flood our minds because we are given many physical things. The trinkets and toys we are blessed with are much less important than the spiritual blessings we are given through Christ. How much thanksgiving do we give for these spiritual blessings?
In Luke 17:11-17 Jesus heals 10 lepers on his way to Jerusalem. All ten lepers yelled “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” But how many returned to Jesus to show their gratitude for His act of love? Verses 15-17 of this passage tell us that “one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed. But the nine-where are they?” One returned. Just one. And a Samaritan foreigner at that. Matthew Henry writes in his commentary
“A sense of our spiritual leprosy should make us very humble whenever we draw near to Christ. It is enough to refer ourselves to the compassions of Christ, for they fail not. We may look for God to meet us with mercy, when we are found in the way of obedience. Only one of those who were healed returned to give thanks. It becomes us, like him, to be very humble in thanksgivings, as well as in prayers. Christ noticed the one who thus distinguished himself, he was a Samaritan. The others only got the outward cure, he alone got the spiritual blessing.”
Let us NOT be like the nine (the vast majority) and forget to give thanks for the blessings God gives us. He has blessed so much more spiritually than physically but we too often forget that fact. Our heart and our actions should be that of this Samaritan leper.
— Brian