Take Time To Give Thanks

Take Time to Give Thanks

Bible Blast: Read Luke 17:11-19

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” Luke 17:15

Leprosy is a disease that covers a person’s skin in painful sores. Before medicine was made to treat it, this disease was really contagious, so “healthy” people didn’t go near lepers and certainly never touched them. During Bible times, lepers were treated as if they weren’t even human.

There are several stories of God healing people from leprosy in the Bible, like in today’s Bible Blast. There’s one in Matthew 8 that tells how a leper knelt before Jesus and asked to be healed. It says that “Jesus reached out and touched him” and the man was healed. You have to understand: Nobody touched a leper. Nobody.

But Jesus did.

The story you read in Luke 17 today is so interesting. Can you picture ten outcast people with a terrible skin disease calling out to Jesus? They didn’t even come close to him. They called to him from “a distance.” He told them to go see their priests, and they were healed as they went on their way.

One guy was so amazed at his healed, clean, pure skin, he ran to Jesus, giving praise to God. He fell down in front of Jesus and thanked him for answering his prayer for healing.

Here’s an interesting tidbit for you: If a person was healed of leprosy, the law said he had to go to his priest, who would pronounce the person “clean” so he could hang out with everyone else again. That’s why Jesus told the ten lepers to head to their priests. Okay, here’s the cool thing: The fifth chapter of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is our High Priest, meaning he’s the one who pronounces us clean before God. So while the other nine lepers went to their priests, the tenth guy went directly to the High Priest, who was Jesus Christ! And Jesus gave him a new label of “clean.”

When God answers prayers, it gives our faith a boost, and we feel like we’re on top of the world. But make sure you take the time to go to Jesus and say, “Thank you.”

Girl Gab: Talk to your mom about prayers you’ve seen God answer. Get excited together, and thank God for those answers!