If a person does not believe in God, then is there anyone to whom he gives thanks for a beautiful sunset, a rainbow, a walk in the forest next to a bubbling brook, or his daily meals? “For although they knew God [as Creator], they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21)
When I traveled to India with Apple of His Eye Charity, I’ve previously mentioned that one of my highlights was going to the leprosy churches. They were some of the most grateful people, probably because we treated them with dignity as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ instead of avoiding them.
Because of the way lepers have always been treated, often they will congregate together. A group of ten lepers was walking together along the northern border of Samaria when they crossed paths with Jesus. They cried out, asking Him to have pity on them. “When He saw them, He said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.” (Luke 17:14)
It’s hard for us to imagine the sudden turnaround this would have been for these men. Having leprosy meant that you were doomed to a life of begging. The closest thing would be to have terminal cancer spreading throughout your body, with only a few months to live. Then, one morning you wake up without any pain. Running a battery of tests, your doctor announces you to be cancer-free. Even if you didn’t believe in God, you’d still whoop and holler and give praise to the chemotherapy.
In the same way, you’d expect all ten of these guys to rush back and thank the Lord for their healing. But to His amazement, only one “came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’” (Luke 17:15–18)
Once again, the hero of the story is the bitter enemy of the Jews, a Samaritan (the Good Samaritan). Similarly, the Bible describes all of us before we come to Christ as “foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12) But, at the very moment we receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we “are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household,” (Ephesians 2:19)
Though here in America, we aren’t physical lepers, all of us are spiritual ones diseased by the cancer of sin. God is willing to cleanse us of it. So much so, that He sent Jesus to atone for our sin. When He cried out, “It is finished,” the gift of salvation and eternal life became available to you and me.
The ten lepers were told to walk toward Jerusalem. However, we aren’t asked to go anywhere special to be born again. The only requirement to obtain eternal life is to “confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
Once you do that, not only your future, but your entire eternity is changed in an instant, and you will find yourself overflowing with thankfulness to God.
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