A Samaritan's thanksgiving | Religion and Spirituality

By ZigfredDiaz
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Several months ago, I was preparing for a Sunday sermon on thanksgiving. The Lord brought to my attention the Samaritan leper's thanksgiving recorded in Luke 17 verses 11 to 19. This is a very familiar story among Christians. The story goes like this, there were 10 Samaritan lepers who asked Jesus for mercy. Jesus told them to show themselves to the priest. While going there, they found out that they were healed. Sadly, only one of them came back to thank Jesus.

As a firm believer in the full exposition of Scripture, I dug deeper into the words used in the text. Among the words that interest me was the Greek word for "Thanks." The Greek word used is the word "eucharisteo" where we get our word for "Eucharist." This word is the same word used by Christ, whenever the Gospel tells us that Christ gave thanks for a meal. This is almost always the same word used by the Apostle Paul when writes his opening statements in his epistles.

The word eucharisteo literally means eu = good, well + a form of charis = to favor or thank; to respond to a good favor. The word "Eucharisteo" is also used as the verb form of the word "Charis" which is often translated as "Grace."

While I studied the Greek words and the Gospel story, I realized that that the Lepers were asking for mercy, however only one of them got to realize that he was given grace and he responded properly to it.

There is a big difference between "Mercy" and "Grace" although we sometimes we used them interchangeably. But in reality they are not the same. To simply point out the difference, note that Mercy is "not getting what you deserve." Grace on the other hand is "getting what you don't deserve." The difference is not just a matter of semantics. There is a huge difference between the two. Because of our sins we deserve to go to Hell. But because of God's mercy we are spared from the punishment of hell. However the reason why we receive eternal life is only because of grace. We do not deserve the eternal life granted to us through the death Jesus Christ, but we received it because of GRACE.

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9 says that "For by Grace are you saved through faith, it is the gift of God, not works lest any man should boast" The gift spoken of here is "Saving faith." In other words even the faith to believe is given to us by God because by ourselves alone we do not have the ability to believe God by Faith. All we have is natural faith. What we need in order to know Christ is "supernatural faith."

We should be thankful to God for giving us "Supernatural faith." Certainly it is not because of our own natural ability that we have the faith to believe in Jesus Christ and what he did for us. We believe in him because we have been given the faith to believe.

Because he realized that he was given this unmerited favor, the Samaritan Leper was so thankful that he "turned back and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks"

He was then asked by Jesus Christ, ""Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are none found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger."

And I love this last part, Jesus continues and tells him "Arise; go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole." Literally he is saying to this Samaritan Leper "Your faith has saved you."

That day the Samaritan Leper got more than healing from his leprosy, he found Salvation in Christ. It pays to be truly thankful.

About the Author

Wish to know more about being thankful ? Visit the blog of Zigfred Diaz where he regularly writes about other interesting topics mainly on financial management, investments, How to invest in the Philippine stock market, practical christian living, law, life and living.

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