Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Luke 17:11-19
Jesus Cleanses Ten Men with a Skin Disease
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus[a] was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’s[b] feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? 18 Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Devotional Thought:
After years of shame, isolation, and loneliness, the leper noticed he was healed. Did he have to fight back suspicion? Did he wonder if others would accept him?
All we know is that he came back to Jesus. He praised God loudly and thanked Jesus. For this moment, the leper ignored the challenges still before him and focused on the good.
Jesus asked three rhetorical questions, hoping for reflection not answers.
“Weren’t all ten healed?” “Where are the other nine?” “Didn’t anyone else return and give praise to God?”
Then Jesus addressed the one who had returned. “Your faith has healed you.’”
Jesus wasn’t talking about the physical healing that had happened on the road to all ten. He was likely referring to the deeper healing of the man’s mental health that began with being thankful/grateful for the good (no matter how small). Jesus didn’t need the gratitude as much as the man needed it. Perhaps at that moment a new response pattern was started in this man’s mind and his life.
Prayer:
God, thank you for all the goodness in our lives, for […………………………...]
We pray that you would burn ever-deepening pathways of gratitude in our minds and in our lives so that you are praised, others are encouraged, and we are made whole.
Rev Dr Linda Stargel
Academic Dean