Have you ever wondered why you are so greatly blessed? With Thanksgiving Day coming up, I’ve been wondering how best a person can show thankfulness. I’ve heard it said we could divide all Americans into three groups, based on how they show their thankfulness.
1. The first group rarely if ever, say thanks, and if they do, it’s just a formality. To them, Thanksgiving Day is little more than ‘Turkey Day.’
2. The second group says thank you and knows it’s the right thing to do. Thanksgiving Day for them is a time to remember blessings, give thanks for them and share them with others.
3. The third group of people is genuinely thankful because it is a part of their character because they know they are are unworthy of all their blessings. Thanksgiving Day is a time to praise God for what they have and try to live their thankfulness each day.
Giving God thanks should be more than mere action or words. It can be a lifestyle, a grateful attitude of the heart that expresses genuine thankfulness for blessings received. A Bible lesson often heard on Thanksgiving Day is from Luke 17 about the Ten Lepers Jesus healed. It goes like this:
Traveling through southern Galilee, Jesus encounters ten persons considered untouchable due to their disease who ask for His help. Jesus has compassion but doesn’t touch or heal them on the spot. Rather, He tells them to go see the priests, which they all do. As they go, they realize they are healed and run quickly to get a clean bill of health.
But one first turns to thank Jesus and praise God for his healing. Jesus asks a question that might also be our own: Where the others? Why didn’t they also thank Him right away? Why did only this fellow do it? Perhaps because he, a Samaritan, recognized his unworthiness. He was doubly untouchable, a religious and a social outcast in the same person, but he'd been healed- Praise God!
Jesus owed this man nothing, yet He gave him great blessings, physical and spiritual healing. The Samaritans felt God cared little for them, but this man knew God did. King David felt the same kind of unworthiness as he sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, Oh Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me thus far?” (2 Samuel 7:18) God genuinely loves us and that’s enough to merit our heartfelt thanks.
May we also realize we are unworthy for all the blessings God gives us.
Rev. Bob Tasler, www.bobtasler.com
No comments:
Post a Comment