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Thursday 2 January 2014

Luke 17:11-19 - Healed or Blessed?

Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, travelling between Samaria and Galilee. On the way He came across ten lepers. They would be outcasts in society, as well have the effects of the disease itself. They called on Jesus to take pity on them. Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priest. If a person was cleansed of leprosy they had to show themselves to a priest to have this verified (Lev 13:2,3). Now at this point they had not been healed. On the way they were cleansed. Jesus sometimes tells us to do things and it seems that not everything is in place, not everything has been taken care of that needs taking care of. Many things will be taken care of along the way. We cannot follow Jesus if we demand that everything is sorted out, everything made clear before we follow.
Only one of the lepers returned to Jesus to thank Him. This one was a Samaritan as well, a people looked down on with disdain by Jews. Jesus asked where the others were. Ten were healed but only one was blessed. The other no doubt gladly received their healing, but had no gratitude to God, did not learn anything about God. Only one was blessed. He came to Jesus. 
It is important that we do not just treat God as a prayer answer machine. We need to develop a relationship with Him. Eternal life is knowing the Father and knowing the Son (John 17:3).

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