God’s blessings are meant to fuel our worship
Many of us are familiar with the story of the ten lepers found in Luke chapter 17. In verse 15 the Bible says “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”
- After the 10 lepers pleaded for mercy, Jesus instructed them to go and show themselves to the priests. And as they went they were all healed. You can imagine their joy and excitement, and some indeed went to show themselves to the priests, others might have started at home first. But this one guy decides to come back and worship and also give thanks to Jesus.
- Because of his leprosy he was not allowed to come close to the people, go to the temple/church or even go to listen and mingle with Jesus. You will note that the text says lepers shouted from a distance. Now that he was healed he had the right to come close to the people, and he decided that the first thing he will do is to use his new found right to go to Jesus.
- Others as soon as they were healed they fell in love with their blessings and quickly forgot about the giver of the blessings. Others felt that following the religious rituals and rules (showing themselves to the priest) is more important than returning to the ruler of the whole universe.
- But this man decided that the rules and rituals can wait, He needs to go to worship the Ruler first. He decided that the gift is important, but the gift is nothing without the giver. In fact when we forget about the giver we end up misusing, abusing and something worshiping the gift. He realised that the blessing/healing was given to him so that He can bless the Lord
- Many of us are abusing the gifts/blessings that we have been given; we used them as tools for show-off, pride and selfishness. But in reality the more blessed I am, the more humble I should be, so that it is clear who must receive the glory and honour. The more blessed I am, the more I should worship Him, because the blessings are like petrol in the car, wood in the fire, coals in the stove, they are meant to fuel our worship.
Many blessings for the week!