PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Luke 17:11-19
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:18)
Children raised in rich families can often become spoiled, ungrateful.
The poor can’t take anything for granted, and may be more appreciative.
Often those on the ‘inside’ can take their advantages for granted.
Is this what Jesus experiences with the nine ungrateful Jewish lepers?
Is there an application for us today who have been raised in the church?
Have some of us become spoiled by God’s grace that we don’t value it?
Do we take our blessing for granted, or maybe even think we earned them?
How we respond to outsiders will reveal the truth here.
If we make it hard for them to join, it shows we don’t appreciate grace.
We have been amazingly, shockingly graced well beyond our deserving.
If we really understood this, we would throw the doors open wide.
Not because morality doesn’t matter, but because grace matters more.
Our whole life and ministry ought to be driven by gratitude for grace.
Can you think of anyone who does NOT deserve grace?
PRAYER
Lord, if it wasn’t for your gracious love and patience for me, I could not be here writing this. How can I withhold grace from anyone else?
We need the perspective of someone who someone who has come from ‘outside’ – really we are all outside of God’s righteousness – to realize what mercy and grace has come our way through Jesus. I get that when I see persons who have turned and now ‘bathe’ in God’s grace – and I get it when I think what it took for Jesus to take on the ‘cup of God’s wrath’. Lord you have mercy on us – when we admit our misery in sin – like the lepers who were shunned and cast out (yet still loved by their families). Thank you Jesus for your great healing- your grace!
Gratitude was shown by one leper and he was a Samaritan at that. I need to have an attitude of gratitude with altitude at all times and in all circumstances. I need to count my blessings with gratefulness and give thanks at all times.
Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son
And now let the weak say, “I am strong”
Let the poor say, “I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us”