Giving Thanks, a Christmas Adventure – Day Three

 

Because Adam and Eve refused to acknowledge God, to recognize Him as the source of life and all its gifts, and therefore concede obligation to His rule out of grateful hearts, fellowship with their Creator was severed. Shame on ‘em?! Not so fast. If we refuse to acknowledge God by conceding to His rule, our fellowship with Him is severed, too.

Summed up our first point looked like this: The first crossroad of every man is to acknowledge God and live eucharisteō, expressing thanksgiving.  We’ve seen that knowledge without concession is separation still, but acknowledgment opens the door to fellowship. Let’s pick up there and consider another reward of living thanksgiving: eucharisteō offers us the opportunity to glorify God before the world. We see this principle in Luke 17:11-19.

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

The ungrateful majority of healed lepers in this passage are a tragic picture of what it looks like to take from God and then go our own ways. Their motivation? To go to the priest and be released from their confinement, to be accepted back into the community. “That’s it, that’s all I want! Heal my sins and let me be on my way.” But, watch this. The sole grateful leper’s act of turning back and falling at Jesus’ feet is described by two different but obviously interchangeable phrases, “giving him thanks” and “giving glory to God”.  Think on that. I’ll be back tomorrow.

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