Thankfulness

by L.A. Hickling, of Cromer, U.K. | Category: General | Oct 1984

One of the sad things in some of the cities of the Far East is to see men with

limbs terribly deformed by leprosy sitting by the roadside begging. We feel pity for them. How much more must the Lord Jesus have felt pity when He saw the same thing, for His compassion for the sick and maimed was so much greater than ours. One day, as He was making His way to Jerusalem and was about to pass through one of the villages, He met ten men who were lepers (Luke 17:12). They kept their distance from Him, but shouted to Him to have pity. He responded to their call, not simply by expressing His sorrow at their plight or even giving them something to help as we might do, but by giving them something so much better. He healed them. He had the power to do that because He was the Son of God. What a tremendous change it would be to those men to have healthy bodies again completely cured. No longer would they need to be avoided by their fellows. How happy they would be and thankful. But were they? Only one came back to say thank you to Jesus. Incredible isn't it? Yet perhaps not so strange when we look around us.

I wonder how often we take the gifts of a loving God for granted and fail to say thank you, though we may complain loudly enough when we don't get them. Not many people pause to give thanks to God for their food before they eat it. Rain and sunshine are taken for granted, until too much of one or the other spoils the crops. We like to have healthy bodies in which we can enjoy ourselves. Are we thankful to God for giving us health? Unthankfulness is all too evident perhaps simply because people give no thought to the God who provides. God is not in all their thoughts.

But it should not be so with the Christian. We have experienced God's love shown to us in His greatest gift, His Son, to die for us and we have been brought into a relationship with God. Above all else this should be a cause for thanksgiving. Paul expresses it, "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift" (2 Cor. 9:15).

So also, as we have known this changed relationship with God through the Lord Jesus, thanksgiving should be the continual attitude of our lives, realizing that all the good things we enjoy come from God. Every day brings things for which we should remember to thank God.

But thanksgiving is not only a matter of words. We should be living our thanks, as the apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:1, "Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God which is your spiritual worship." In such a way as this we can really show our thanks, by giving ourselves willingly to the service of Him who saved us, putting ourselves and our possessions at His disposal. That way we can show our thanks in what we do and what we are. Let's remember the experience of the Psalmist that whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies God (Ps. 50:23).

(Scriptural quotations are from the N.I.V.)

L.A. Hickling, of Cromer, U.K. | Oct 1984
General