Questions: Is the One Leper who returned to give thanks to Jesus Christ a statistical representation of today’s population? What does it mean to be ungrateful? What benefits are there for showing gratitude for good deeds?

Here is the record of the healing interaction in the Bible, Luke 17:11-19, New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Heals Ten Men With Leprosy

¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy^[a] met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Important Lessons:

1. “Leprosy” could be interpreted as a blemish in the life of a person: a frustrated career, a depressing relationship, family upheaval, business failure, humiliating debts, and much more. It may be a stretch to say that everyone, rich or poor, liberal or conservative has an issue they are dealing with, privately or obviously. Like the Ten Lepers, we can always call out to our Lord and Savior, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” Christians and non-Christians know the name of JESUS. People can call on the name with seriousness and expect him to cleanse their particular “leprosy”.
2. “Go, show yourselves to the priests”: In the Mosaic law, whenever a leper was healed and needed to be restored back to society, a priest must certify that he was clean. To whom do you need to show yourself to prove your “cleanliness”? Your spouse, children or parents? Your business partners? The credit bureau, IRS or your bank, mortgage lender? In other words, “Go, show yourselves to the priests” is like saying you have been set free from your difficulty, you are now able to restart your life. Some years ago, my wife and I suffered a terrible embarrassment. We were in the bank to apply for a loan. When our credits were pulled by the loan officer, it was discovered that we had some negative hits on our credit. Someone had stolen some check leaves from an account we had closed at TCF National Bank and used it to make some purchases at the post office and a store and the checks naturally bounced. Letters sent to the address on the checks never got to us because, again we had left the apartment building address on them. Our names were subsequently reported to all the three credit reporting agencies Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. We started an exhausting process of proving that: one, we did not write those bounced checks; two, they were stolen from a dumpster; three, we had moved address twice and the mails about the debts never got to us. We went to the bank, police station, post office and made several calls and written explanations to the credit agencies one by one. It felt like a sickening leprosy. We engaged in prayer calling on “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” It took a long while but we finally got our miracle, we were exonerated and our credit reinstated by the bureaus.
3. One of Ten Lepers returned to give Thanks: We were jubilant when we got a clearance from the post office that our “bad debt” occasioned by the stolen check had been canceled. But that was not sufficient on its own to clean up our credit reports. Going to the credit reporting agencies felt like we were on our way to the priests to show we had been cleansed from our “financial leprosy”. I remember we were very serious about our victory singing songs of victory and thanksgiving. We did not want to be like the 9 friends of the one leper who alone returned to Jesus to show gratitude.
4. “Rise and go, your faith has made you well”: There is a school of faith that says only the one leper was made whole. The argument rests on what Jesus Christ said to him which is interpreted to mean that the 9 other lepers were cleansed but were not made whole. They did not realize that going back to thank the savior was needed to achieve the full cleansing they needed.

We always need to go back to God after we overcome a “leprosy”. Thanksgiving and showing of gratitude for acts of kindness are essential to a healthy life. Gratitude is an attitude that opens doors of blessing and favor from others and from God. If we are not used to saying “Thank you” in our families, on our jobs, to our friends and associates, we may find it difficult to know we should be giving thanks to our creator for all the good things He does for us day after day.

Don’t be like the 90% of the population of healed lepers in Luke 17:11-19. Be among the 10% of grateful people so that your miracles can be undeniable.