Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Breaking The Heart Of God

LUKE 17:11-19 – On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

THEME OF THE DAY. BREAKING THE HEART OF GOD. Let’s go back and read today’s scripture again. As we do, move away from the miracle of healing the ten lepers and look into the heart of the Miracle-worker, the Lord Jesus. Do we see the sadness? Even a breaking of His heart? Ten incurably sick individuals were touched by the Master. His compassion and reaching out in power to heal them made them leap for joy as they obeyed Jesus’ words to go and show the priests what had happened. Yet, only one. Only one of ten lepers paused and said, “What a minute. What kind of person am I? Am I so full of myself and selfishness that I don’t have the decency and gratitude to say, ‘Thank you so much, Jesus, for showing me undeserved mercy?’”

Perhaps one of the greatest things we do to grieve the heart of our God is to live in a forgetful state of obeying the command “give thanks in all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Think about this with me. Our God is so good, so loving, so giving, so kind, so merciful, and so forgiving that our failure to live with thankful hearts is the height of “spiritual rudeness” and disrespect. It is not hard to see Jesus grieving over the nine lepers who took what He gave them and moved on without even a thought of praising and thanking Him. Except one . . . and it begs two questions of each of us . . . “Would we be in the majority of the lepers, ungrateful and moving on in life?” or “Would we be the ‘lone leper’ giving our Master what He deserves, and we were created for – giving of thanks for His amazing grace, love, and mercy?” But there is something even more revealing should we be in the majority of lepers. We are not giving the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit which means not walking in awareness and dependency on what we need to live the Christian life.

The Apostle Paul gives the Ephesian believers and us the marks of being a Holy Spirit-filled person. One of them is being thankful. He writes, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-21). Giving thanks to God in all things and for all things keeps our lives God-centered. And it is God-centeredness which is the pre-requisite to live God-honoring. No wonder living life as the majority of the lepers did grieves and saddens the heart of God. It keeps us from enjoying and glorifying Him through the Spirit-filled and controlled life.

As we evaluate ourselves in light of the ten lepers, may we find ourselves in the distinct majority of being the worshipping and thankful leper. God so deserves such from us.

PRAYER: “Father, please help me to live with a thankful heart, not sometime, but all the time”

QUOTE: “God is so good and so giving that an unthankful heart toward Him is sin of great measure”