The Need for Thanksgiving

We are blessed in the United States to have a special holiday set aside for thanking God, but today the media and popular culture emphasize Black Friday to a greater extent than Thanksgiving. As grateful people, we will stand out in such a culture, and God will use our gratitude to Him for His glory. We learn a great deal about the importance of thanksgiving (not the holiday, but the act of giving thanks) in Luke 17:11-19.

11 Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

This event reflects, and consequently reminds us of, several realities.

• First, while all should be thankful, gratitude is a rare commodity. In this incident, just one out of ten returned to Jesus to give thanks. Jesus asked, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?”
• Second, while certainly all ten men must have been relieved to have been healed, there’s a big difference between being relieved and being grateful. Quite often, once a crisis has passed, we forget our indebtedness to God. This apparently was true for nine of the ten who were healed.
• Third, it is the nature of a grateful heart to express thanks. Unexpressed thanks isn’t really thanks at all. If you genuinely are thankful, you’ll find ways to express your gratitude. Luke tells us that the grateful man “returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.”
• Fourth, expressions of gratitude may surprise us. Luke tells us that the one returning “was a Samaritan.” After He observed that just one out of ten returned to Him, Jesus said, “Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Let’s make sure that we’re consistently thankful, thereby at times surprising others with our expressions of thanks.
• When the ten lepers asked Jesus for mercy and thus for healing, Jesus responded by telling them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” They obeyed, and “as they went, they were cleansed.” It is significant that in order to return and offer thanks, the healed Samaritan postponed his obedience. We assume he followed through after thanking Jesus, but the postponement to offer thanks was appropriate and necessary. Accordingly, our fifth observation is that, like the nine other healed men, we can get caught up in doing something good and right but fail to fulfill our greater responsibility of expressing gratitude. Jesus didn’t say to the man who returned, “Didn’t I tell you to go to the priest?” Rather, He commended him for returning and praising God.
• Sixth, gratitude has tremendous benefits for the grateful person. Jesus told the healed Samaritan, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
• Seventh, gratitude to God and faith are intertwined. While Jesus didn’t tell the healed Samaritan his gratitude had made him well, He commended him for praising God—something he wouldn’t have done had he not been grateful. Then Jesus told him his faith had made him well. It takes faith in God to express thanks to Him. Keep in mind that we can’t please God without faith (see Heb. 11:6).

Thanksgiving, you see, is essential for the believer. May we be people who are grateful for the blessings we have, and may we always express gratitude to the God who is the source of those blessings.

Copyright © 2015 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.