THANKFULNESS: A KEY TO WHOLENESS

Chapters

• 0:08 The Call To Constant Thankfulness
• 0:15 Ten Lepers Meet Jesus
• 1:21 Modern Encounters With Need
• 3:13 The Heart And Practice Of Gratitude
• 6:40 Entering God’s Presence With Thanks
• 10:23 Crying Out: Jesus, Master, Mercy
• 12:11 As They Went: Faith In Action
• 14:33 The One Who Returned And Was Made Whole
• 17:56 The Extra Step: Thanksgiving And Wholeness
• 18:05 Subscribe And Learn More

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

God says to be thankful all the time. Every day is a day of thanksgiving. Luke 17, verse 11. While he was on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, ten lepers men who stood at a distance met him. They raised their voice, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, Go, show yourself to the priest. And as they were going they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him, and he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine, were they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well. Jesus had been on a ministry trip, declaring the word of God, going from village to village, town to town. And when you go out into the world and you go to do the work of the Lord, you never know what's going to come across your path. And I'm thinking of a group of lepers that I came across in Bangladesh, begging and sitting on the roadside, and they would gather every day, all together, and they would seek for finances. And when Jesus was passing through this town, he came across a group of ten. And it says they lifted up their voices. This was in Luke 17, 13. They're in a state of no hope whatsoever. Have you ever helped somebody out financially or helped them out physically, did something for them? Or just gave them a word, and they said, You are the only one that helped me. I was in such need, and you were the only one who helped me. Isn't that a wonderful sense and a feeling that you have, knowing that you felt like doing it and that these people took the time to thank you for helping them. We sometimes think, I wanted it, I have it now. Somebody had to provide that answer for you. Somebody. And it's the least that we can ever do is to say thank you and to show gratitude. But when it comes to God, the thought doesn't hardly ever enter our minds to say thank you, Lord. Whatever it is. Just to be grateful for the coming through the night and to be grateful for the new day. Thankfulness is not something that we can force it at somebody. And sometimes we will do that to our children. What do you say after we give them something? And they know what they've got to say, and what they have to say is thank you. That's a good boy, that's a good girl, and we're thinking about an older adult. If we had to force them to say thank you, I think that what would go through my mind would be that they don't really appreciate it. They do that because I expected them to say that. But when we look at a passage in Leviticus in 22-29, if we're going to thank God and to tell the Lord that we're thankful, it's wonderful when we do it in our own will, our own free will. It's what we want to do. How many times have we helped someone? And there's no way that they'll ever be able to repay us. Something that we did, and they feel so obligated, and whatever, and we know that they are grateful, and we knew that they needed it, and we felt that we should help them and that we should do it. And when they say thank you, that brings everything together. That settles what I've just done for them. A simple thank for you when you genuinely mean it. That's everything. That's all that I need. Sometimes you'll help people money or whatever, and they'll say, I'll pay you back because they don't know what else to say. And full will they can't. You're gonna say, No, this is a gift, this is something which I feel I wanted to do. And they'll say, Thank you. And to know that people appreciate what you do for them, that is worth a lot. But when we think about God and what he does for us, and we're gonna say, He's God, he knows, he knows that I'm grateful. Have you noticed how many times in the Bible that it talks about us speaking? When we speak, it is an audible sound. And we say, Thank you. The Lord loves it when we say thank you. Thanksgiving always begins with prayer. And we're gonna say, Lord, what would you have me do? Or the Lord will speak to us when God says, This is what I want you to do. We do it, and we get blessed because we do it. And the individual that we give to may have been praying to God and wondering how the solution and the answer is going to be. When they receive, they have a prayerful attitude and then saying, Lord, by faith, you have made the way for me. Psalm 69, 30. The Bible says that we can magnify God with thanksgiving. We don't just take it for granted. We don't just take it and say, oh, yeah, yeah, and just move along. We say, Father, I thank you for that provision. Thank you. And right away you're acknowledging that it was God that made the way and gave the answer. You can grow so much in just being thankful. You'd be amazed what will happen to your spirit when you start saying thank you. It's amazing what happens to you, it keeps you humble. You're in a position where you're really saying is, I can't do it all on my own. I need you. And I can't do it on my own as a believer. I need God, and I need you. And there's something about being thankful that in the end, you are the winner. You grow and you mature and you are the winner. Psalm 95, 2, always come into his presence with thanksgiving. If you were to have an audience with a leader of some nation, no matter what nation on earth, if you were to be able to go to their home and have breakfast with them, or if they would invite you to come and have a chat with them and talk to them about things spiritually, that's a privileged opportunity. That doesn't just happen to anybody. I remember I was in a country preaching a number of years ago, and I had received a note the night before, and they said that the local member of Parliament, and he was a cabinet secretary in the national government, he'll be sending his car around for you in the morning, and he would like to have you join him for breakfast. And he wants to talk about salvation. He wants to talk to you about what it is his wife and son have. He wants me to explain it to him. And I'm thinking, this opportunity doesn't just come along any time. So I went and had breakfast, and he said, What is it? And I said, Well, talk to him. And I told him what it is: Jesus dying on the cross and salvation, how we can come to know the Lord and the difference that it makes in our life. And this is what has happened to his wife and to his son, who were in my meetings. And so I was thankful for that opportunity. But to have an opportunity to come into the presence of God and he will listen to you. He only listens, he only talks with those who know him. Outside of that, everyone else is dead. And to think that when you come to know the Lord, you come to know what it is to have spiritual life, and you come into his presence, and you are so thankful that you know the Lord, and what a privilege and what a wonderful time this is. So it was quite a lot like this for these ten lepers. Obviously, they knew about Jesus. They had heard about his miracles because the Bible tells us that. He was doing many miracles, and the crowds would come to him to understand when the crowds would come, the lepers would not be allowed among them. They would always be outcasts, they would always be on the fringe. Jesus is walking where he could hear what they would have to say. And they cried unto him, it says, verse 13, they lifted up their voice. They spoke louder than they would normally talking to one another. They said, Jesus, you cannot cry that name and be cut off. Anybody who cries the name of Jesus, whether it's coming to him or whatever it is, whatever they need, right away, the power that is greater than any power we know is now listening to us. Jesus. And then they also look a little bit further. Master, have mercy on us. Take away the leprosy, take away this disease that it will grow no more. We learn a lot here. Jesus healed people different ways. Sometimes it was with mud, sometimes it was with a word, sometimes, yes, he laid his hands. Here's what he says. Go! Show yourself to the priests. They looked at one another. The disease is still working in them. But what happens is, this is quite a miracle, and it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. It did not happen until they took that step and started walking. The mistake that many people make, not all, but many people make the mistake of not, oh I'm not healed, nothing happening to me. Stand. I don't feel any different. I don't think I can stand. Raise your arm. I told you it was seized. It's seized. Raise it. Numerous times in my years in ministry, when I've ministered to people, have come to me with seized arms, whatever it is, shoulder. And I would tell them to raise it. And I think one of the most notable was a senior. Nothing happened that night, but the next night he came and he wanted to testify. And he said I was showering. And when they finished, he said, I grabbed the towel and I wasn't even thinking. And I grabbed the towel and I hung it like this. And when he did that, the place just started to shout. Oftentimes, when you start acting as if you're healed, talking as if you're healed, moving as if you're healed, you will leave that thing behind. Faith works that way. Faith requires action. Many times I have done that. And been in positions where we have no provision and we have to go anyway and do it. Just go and do it and let's see what happens. The Bible does say, as they went, one of them, one of them. Out of the ten, verse 15, one of them. When he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God. As they went, they were cleansed. John chapter four, verse fifty, Jesus said to him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. This was a nobleman whose son was sick. And what does it say? The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way, and as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, Your son lives. Your son liveth. As he went, I am grateful that God has given us faith. I give thanks for this. And every time that I minister or believe by faith, if I believe that I've received it, then I have to live as if I have it. From now on, I now have it. I believe every day. You understand? And as you go, you believe. I am thankful that I've known the Lord. And I'm thankful that I give thanks unto the Lord for what he does. I'm thankful for this. And we see that as these people went, they got their answer. If they'd have sat still, they've remained in there. And this man was a foreigner, Jesus points that out as well. But this one leper came back to thank Jesus. That demonstrated humility in that man. Do you know how hard that was? The Jews always acted superior over the Samaritans. And this man was a Samaritan. And to go back, he could have listened to the thought, why should I go back and be subject to arrogance? No. He didn't entertain them. He says, I cannot just walk with the others. I know that I'm healed. I've got to go back and thank him. And he did. Jesus says, Were there not ten of you? And the man doesn't give the account here, but the man said, Yes, sir, that would be correct. He says, I only see one. And it's a stranger. This man is kneeling at the feet of Jesus. He's humble. He's so grateful. He's so thankful. And he gets now the second blessing. Of all the lepers, he was the only one made whole. Because leprosy can make all kinds of deformities. And by the time that man looked at his body, everything is working perfectly. That's a great lesson in Thanksgiving. In Thanksgiving, it takes us that extra step. It's not just your need being met, but in Thanksgiving there's a wholeness coming forth in you. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

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