Turn Back!

Good morning! Today's power scripture comes from Luke 17:15-19:  “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,¹⁶ And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? ¹⁸ There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.¹⁹ And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.”(KJV)

          Of the ten lepers cleansed by Jesus, only one turned back to give thanks and in doing so he was made whole.  The other nine were indeed healed but purely by the grace and mercy of Jesus, despite their ingratitude. The thankful man was not only healed but Jesus made him whole.  Nothing lacking; nothing missing. His wellness was because of his faith.  He got the cake and the icing too. I think I like the fact that God sees my heart and rewards me for my faith which is pleasing to him in comparison to receiving grace gifts where I give nothing to God.  Don’t’ get me wrong.  I LOVE GRACE AND MERCY and if it were not for the diet of grace and mercy that I have been living on so lavishly for the past few years I would surely have wasted away; but I appreciate that God gives me opportunity to show him how much I love him through my faithfulness and thanksgiving.

          Right now you might be going through some tough situations and that so-called light at the end of the tunnel is nothing more than another fast-paced locomotive speeding toward you ready to run you over.   The greener grass seems to never grow on your side of the fence and the silver linings of your dark clouds keep flaking off.  Regardless of these things we must remember that daily God is providing for us and if we take our eyes off of the things that seem to be going wrong, we can channel enough of our consciousness to be thankful for the many things that are going right.  The devil always wants you to shift away from the positive to dwell on the negative.  Don’t’ do it.  It isn’t worth it and it takes you down a rabbit hole of despair and potential depression.  The lepers might have wanted an instant healing, but it happened as they were walking toward the priests – who knows maybe they were so focused on what was wrong and anticipating relief later that they didn’t even realize that their healing was in their walking.  One did…and he turned back and gave thanks.  Don’t be so focused on your problems or what might even seem to be a solution that you miss the healing and the opportunity to turn back and give thanks.

Every day is a good day; it is up to us to make it a power-packed GREAT day! Dr. JoAnn