Happy Thanksgiving, Brothers and Sisters!
I know I'm a day early, but since tomorrow will be a busy day for many of you, I figured you would be more likely to have read this by the time the turkey's carved if I went ahead and posted my message this afternoon rather than tomorrow morning.
I hope tomorrow will be a day of feasting, fellowship, and fun for you. Some of you will probably have the traditional American festivities- turkey, pumpkin pie, the Macy's parade, and the football game- with a big, loud extended family. And others of you are more nontraditional, upholding traditions which are uniquely meaningful to you and the ones you share them with. I lean more towards the latter, personally. My family consists of just my dad and me, so we tend to keep our holiday festivities pretty low-key. We're planning to go out to dinner, same as every year. (This seems to be the ideal Thanksgiving tradition for a single dad who doesn't know a cookbook from his left elbow, and his teenage daughter who thinks watching football falls somewhere between trigonometry and waterboarding on life's list of fun things to do.)
But regardless of how you celebrate it, I hope with all my heart that Thanksgiving means more to you than just food, parades, and watching Uncle Ed pass out in front of the TV during the second quarter of the football game from cranberry sauce overdose. Thanksgiving is a time, first and foremost, for giving thanks.
Hmm, what an odd coincidence. Maybe that's why they call it that.
There's a Bible story I want to tell you. It's the story of the ten lepers, found in Luke 17:11-19. I encourage you all to read the full story and pray to understand it further. For the purpose of this discussion, I'm just going to summarize it for you.
First of all, let me tell you a bit about leprosy. I did some research the other day as I was preparing to write this post, and I want to give you a quick background on the disease. It's a chronic infectious disease that's caused by a certain bacteria. It affects the skin, eyes, and sometimes nerve cells of the patient. In untreated cases, loss of sensation, muscle paralysis of hands and feet, disfigurement, and blindness may occur. Today, it can be treated and often even cured because of modern medicine, and because doctors fully understand it.
But back in Biblical times, there was no real medical understanding of leprosy. In fact, they regarded it as a curse. People with leprosy were isolated from society. So imagine what a wonderful gift it would be, if you had leprosy, to be healed of it!
In our story in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem when He encountered ten men with leprosy. Because it was illegal for a leper to enter the city or approach a healthy person, they called out to Him for a distance. Jesus answered them by telling them to go to the priest. All ten of them were healed.
All ten of them exercised faith, right? They believed that by doing what Jesus asked, they would be healed. And obedience too. But not all of them were so full of the spirit of the season: GRATITUDE! In fact, only one of the ten came back to Christ to praise Him and thank Him for giving him a new, healthy life.
There's plenty of excuses the other nine probably made: "He's God; He knows everything, so He knows I'm grateful." or "Well, I was just doing what He said." But brothers and sisters, you can make all the excuses in the world, but it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility as a Christian to be thankful for your blessings! So be like the leper who returned to thank Him; every evening as you say your prayers, return to Him in prayer and raise up a thankful heart to Him. Praise and thank Him always for the gifts He gives you.
And guess what? Unless you learn to be thankful, you won't be happy, no matter how blessed you may be. All ten of the lepers received the gift of being healed, but only one received yet another gift: the gift of the joy that comes from thankfulness.
I'm sure you have turkey to marinate, pie to refrigerate, and family from out of town pulling up in your driveway as we speak, but I wanted to give you something to think about and share with those you love this Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, and tell Uncle Ed to lay off the cranberry sauce.
Grace and peace to you, and to all whom you hold dear. May your Thanksgiving Day be joyful, peaceful, and most of all, prayerful. God bless.
~BYR
