Making a Differencewith Pastor Phil Erickson

“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.” – (Luke 17:17-18)

In our passage today, we read about the ten lepers that were healed of their debilitating disease by the Lord Jesus. Leprosy was, and is, a real disease that was often fatal for all who contracted it; but in the Bible, it was also spiritually a picture of sin. Sin is the ultimate debilitating disease, and is always fatal unless the sinner comes to the only One who can cure it. (Romans 6:23a) Of course, the only cure for sin is the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ, which can be applied to the sinner when he places his faith in Him. Anyway, in the Bible story today Jesus heals all ten of these lepers, but only one out of the ten returns to thank the Lord. Jesus asks the question: “where are the nine?”.

The same question can be asked today. There are many people who have come to the Lord Jesus, and have asked Him to forgive their sins, which He promises to do; but all too often the people who receive forgiveness tend to forget to demonstrate their appreciation to the One who gave it. This is the month that we celebrate Thanksgiving. Let’s not forget to put thanks to God at the top of the list of the things that we are thankful for.

How can we demonstrate our thanks to God for all that He has done for us:

1  By glorifying Him in our praise. We need to express our thankfulness to Him audibly by praising Him for all that He has done for us. We certainly need to praise Him in our prayer closets, but we also need to be public in our praise. We need to let everyone know that we appreciate God. That is how He receives glory. We make Him look good to the people around us when we praise Him.

2  By giving back to Him in our service. It is easy to express words of thanksgiving, but a better expression of true appreciation comes when we give back to Him. We give back to Him when we serve His people, and when we support His cause.

3  By going to the people He died for, and giving them the gospel. The greatest way to express your thanks to God for the spiritual cleansing that you received is by taking the message of salvation to the world around you. Jesus loves people. He came to earth in order to die for people so that they could be healed from sin. We must go out and tell people how much the Lord loves them.

Don’t be like these nine people who failed to be grateful for what the Lord had done for them. They may have been thankful in their hearts, but the Lord was grieved because the thanksgiving was not expressed. Tell the Lord how much you love and appreciate Him, and then demonstrate your appreciation by surrendering your life to Him.