This Sunday, we will turn our attention to the topic of gratitude. We will be reading from Luke 17, which describes an encounter Jesus has with 10 lepers. In this encounter, the group of individuals suffering from a skin disease that would have made them outcasts in their society, cry out to Jesus for healing. He instructs them to go to the priests so that they may be healed. While on their way, scripture tells us that one of these individuals realizes that his skin condition is gone and he has been fully healed. In response to this realization, he runs back to Jesus and falls at his feet, lifting up shouts of thanksgiving to God.
This story gives us a powerful reminder about the importance of gratitude. Most of us will probably never know what life was like for the individual in this story who lived with leprosy in a 1st century society. However, most of us probably do have at least some understanding of what it means to be blessed by God in such a way that you feel the only appropriate response is to fall down at the feet of Jesus and say, “Thank you!”
This Sunday we’ll kick-off of our annual stewardship campaign. While this is a time in which we discuss the financial needs of our congregation, it is so much more. It is a time in which we attempt to be more intentional in our reflections on the presence of God in our lives. It is a time in which we are reminded of the depths of God’s love for us and the myriad of ways God makes that love known to us in our lives. It is a time when we ponder the ways we might say, “Thank you,” to the God who claims us as children.
I hope you will join us this Sunday, and in the coming weeks, as we explore how we can respond to God’s love for us with gratitude.
In Christ,
Charlie Lee
