Word of Encouragement (3/5/2021)
We are thinking about how we should respond to God’s answer to our prayers. We talked about the importance of recognizing God’s work on our behalf and not forgetting to give Him the thanks He deserves. We also talked about the importance of remembering God’s answers to our prayers for the future. By remembering and giving thanks to God, we grow in our confident trust in God, which will help us face future trials and tribulations without panicking and doubting.
Today, let us linger a little longer on the importance of acknowledging God’s kindness toward us and giving Him thanks. An incident in Jesus’ ministry powerfully demonstrates this: Jesus’ healing of ten leprous men (Luke 17:12-19). You know the story well. One day, ten lepers came to Jesus, pleading with Him from a distance to have mercy on them. Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they went, they were healed on the way. One of them, who was a Samaritan, came back to Jesus, fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, and gave Him thanks. Jesus asked why only this Samaritan returned to give praise to God. Then, He pronounced to him that his faith had made him well. By “being made well,” Jesus could not have meant that his faith had healed him of leprosy: he was already healed. Then, we discover that a more literal translation is, “...your faith has saved you.” How remarkable! This Samaritan leper, who returned to Jesus to give thanks to Him for his healing, received the salvation of his soul as well, whereas the other nine lepers only received physical healing.
Why is giving thanks to God for His answer so important? At the very least, we can see in Jesus’ response to the Samaritan’s gratitude that our gratitude can lead to more and greater blessings from God. We know this from our experience. When we do a small favor for someone and he shows a heartfelt appreciation, we sense our hearts opening up toward him in greater generosity. If we feel this way, how much more would the magnanimous heart of God? Jesus’ grant of eternal salvation to the Samaritan leper shows this.
We also see that Jesus expects our gratitude, and rightly so: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner” (Luke 17:17-18)? It is not that God answers our prayers because He desperately needs our thanksgiving to make Him feel better about Himself. He is all-glorious and all-sufficient in Himself: He is perfect in Himself and He doesn’t need anything from outside. As God, Jesus knew that the nine lepers would not return to thank Him. Yet, He went ahead to heal them of leprosy. But when we cry out to God and He graciously answers our prayer, isn’t it only right that we thank Him with all sincerity?
We learn another important lesson from the nine lepers. They saw Jesus only as a means to their cure. So, when they saw that they were healed, they hastened their steps to the priests, who could pronounce them clean and allow them back into the community. The Samaritan, on the other hand, saw that Jesus, who could heal him simply by speaking to him, was much greater than his cure.
God is God. As such, He cannot be just a means to an end; He is the ultimate End. When God answers our prayers, are we like the nine lepers, who were too busy enjoying Jesus’ answer to their prayer to return and thank Him? Or, are we like the Samaritan, who remembered the One, who healed him, and returned to give thanks to Him and ended up receiving so much more than what he asked for?