Luke 17:18-19–Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?  And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” 

How you ever thought about what makes gratitude so elusive in our world?  Not just gratitude towards God, but towards people.  Whether it’s children with parents, spouses, friends, teachers, etc.  The ability to be grateful for what someone has done for us, would seem to be a “common courtesy”.  But the more we see how sin has devastated our ability to be grateful, the more we see selfish pride as our new normal…

The passage of the ten lepers shows how out of mercy, Jesus answered the distress call of all ten lepers.  Jesus tells them to follow the Jewish ritual of showing themselves to the priest, and they would be healed (vs.14).  Yet only one of them returns, and he was a foreigner, a Samaritan!

This implies that the other 9 lepers were Jews, and should have been more reverent to their own laws and Jesus, yet were not.  This was an indictment between the faith of the Samaritan, and the unbelief of other nine Jewish lepers.  Because when there is faith, there is always gratitude.  Because faith acknowledges the power of God in operation, while unbelief, whether religiously affiliated or not, denies the power!

A true believer will always live to give God thanks, which always produces a humility that looks to give honor to Christ overall, and whoever it rightly belongs to.  Pride and unbelief will always take credit, or deny it from the one who deserves it.  Our ingratitude to give thanks to God and people, is really a sign of our inability to accept that we have no real power.  Yet the believer realizes that, and should not be embarrassed by it. While the unbeliever realizes that, and refuses to give God glory.

In His Love, Ld