Brown's Daily Word 11-15-07

Dear friends,
We often don’t realize how blessed we are, or how thankful we ought to be, until what we have is threatened to be taken away. It is good and fitting that, as Christians, we ought to celebrate Thanksgiving, for God has certainly been good to every single one of us. Someone once said that gratitude is the source for all other Christian virtues. If that be the case, then perhaps we need to reason that ingratitude may well be the source of all, or at least many of our faults as well. When we begin to take for granted what God has done for us, then we become calloused and filled with pride and then God can no longer use us. For a Christian, every day ought to be a day of thanksgiving.
Dr. Luke recorded how ten lepers met Jesus and had a life changing encounter with the Lord. When we break this story down to it’s simplest elements, it describes every Christian. We were outcasts from the Kingdom of God, on our way to certain death, but then we had a life changing encounter with Jesus. We should never forget where the Lord has brought us from. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 51:1, "Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." In other words, look at where God has brought you from, remember what God has done for you. One thing so significant about these lepers who were healed is that, out of the 10, only one returned to say thanks. There were nine who did not take the time to say thank you.
If we were to infer the truth of this story on general humanity, we could say that nine out of ten people never really pause to give thanks for what they have. One man, Charles Brown, gave several suggestions as to why the other nine never returned to give thanks. Keep in mind that these are only suggestions, but they reveal a lot about human nature.
· One waited to see if the cure was real.
· One waited to see if it would last.
· One said he would see Jesus later.
· One decided that he had never had leprosy.
· One said he would have gotten well anyway.
· One gave the glory to the priests.
· One said, "O, well, Jesus didn’t really do anything."
· One said, "Any rabbi could have done it."
· One said, "I was already much improved."
And then there was one who returned to give God thanks. We are told that as they began their journey to the priests they were cleansed or healed. What is significant is that, out of the 10, there was one who reacted differently than the rest. The Bibles says that he saw that he was healed, he turned back and glorified God, and he came to Jesus and gave Him thanks. The others, no doubt, knew that they were healed, but there was something different here. He realized that something wonderful had happened to him. He was sensitive to the power of Christ working in his life. His perception had entirely changed.
There is an old Jewish story that illustrates this point. A man goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?" The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you." The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week." A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "We cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy." The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week." A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat -- only the nine of us."
The situation was the same as at first, but now his perception had changed. He realized that he was blessed to begin with. As a Christian, you have been given everything through Christ Jesus our Lord. The devil will do his best to keep our mind off the blessings of God. He will constantly tell us how bad we have it, and how everything is wrong in our lives. It is only when we begin to realize how much we have in the Lord that we truly begin to be thankful, and when we are thankful, our heart abound with love for the Lord, who has so graciously given all to us. An unthankful Christian is a defeated Christian for he/she has lost his/her joy.
When the one leper saw that he was healed, he turned around. Though the Lord had given the command to go to the priest he delayed, he turned around, and he went back to the Lord. Why didn’t the Lord rebuke him for this? The reason is because this man realized the priority of gratitude and worship. It is fitting and proper to give thanks and praise to the Lord for what He has done in our lives.
As the man drew near to where the Lord was, he glorified God. The Greek word means that he made the Lord glorious, he manifested the worth of the Lord. He came to Jesus and fell down before Him in perfect submission and gave Him thanks. The Lord asked the question, "Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?" Then note what He told this man, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith has made thee whole.”
This was something that the others did not receive. One scholar said that a new power was given to him that day. He had faith, not just to be healed, but many commentaries agree that he had the faith to follow Christ.

We will be going out to Boston next week to spend Thanksgiving with Janice, Jeremy, Micah, and Simeon. Alice was out last weekend, and is eager and excited to go out again. Laureen is there this week, reacquainting and bonding with the little ones, and filling in on the days that Janice works.
In Christ,
Brown