The Attitude of Gratitude

No one would accuse me of always being in style. It’s hard for me to keep up with what’s in and out of style. I know what I like, and if something I like goes out of style, I keep wearing it. I’d still be wearing my Members Only jacket if I hadn’t gained a few pounds since 1982. 

Things do go out of style, though. Men used to wear hats whenever they wore a suit. I would have liked to have been around when men wore hats. Men would wear suits everywhere, too, even when going to a ballgame in the summer, and I definitely could not have handled that. People dressed their best for an airplane flight. Have you flown lately? People wear just about anything on a plane, and it isn’t always a pretty sight.

If there’s any style that needs to come back, it’s 1970s style. You have to admit nothing can beat bell bottoms and 3-hole belts. And I think I looked pretty good in my leisure suits and silk shirts. Maybe it’s up to us children of the ‘70s to bring those back in style!

In all seriousness, though, just like clothes and colors and hairstyles go out of style, some attitudes have gone out of style as well. It’s up to Christians to bring them back.

One of those attitudes is gratitude, which is sorely missed today. By gratitude, I mean the attitude of appreciation for what one has.

No matter how much we have, we always have our eyes on something bigger and better, on more. And it isn’t just that we want more and bigger, we feel like we deserve more and bigger. I deserve a better job, a better car, a better house, a better spouse. So we trade in the old to get the new. We tell ourselves, “I want it all, I deserve it all, and the world owes it to me.” So we go get it.

When I was 9, after my parents saved for years, we moved into the nice house where my folks still live. But today, America is filled with kids who get out of high school or college and live as if they’re entitled now to have the same size house or a much bigger, more expensive house than their parents have, parents who waited years to have what they have. “Not only do I want it all, but I want it now!”

We can’t appreciate what we have because our eyes are always on what we don’t have yet. We settle for what we have, but we don’t truly appreciate it. We aren’t grateful for it.

One day Jesus was walking with his disciples and came to a village. This is late in his ministry, and Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where a cross awaits him. As he entered this village, ten people with leprosy stood at a distance, crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 

Leprosy was a contagious skin disease that left its victims with painful sores. When leprosy victims were in public and someone approached them, they had to yell out, “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn people not to get too close. Not only did lepers suffer from physical pain, but they also suffered the emotional pain of having no contact with other people, sometimes for years. 

But these ten lepers knew about Jesus. They knew that he had healed lots of people during his ministry. He had even raised people from the dead. Maybe Jesus would heal them! So they began shouting to Jesus, begging him for healing. 

When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. (Luke 17:14)

In Jesus’s day, if your leprosy was healed, you were to go to a priest and let him examine you so he could confirm your healing. Jesus sent these men to see a priest before they were even healed. He asked them to obey in faith before they could see any evidence that he had done anything.

To their credit, all ten lepers turned to head to the priest, and sure enough, by acting in faith in Jesus, they were completely healed of leprosy! What they could only dream about had happened! Their greatest prayer had been answered. 

Note that all ten of these lepers had a terrible disease, all ten of them knew about Jesus and believed he could heal them, all ten cried out to Jesus for mercy, all ten trusted and obeyed Jesus, and all ten of them were healed.

But there was something different about one of them.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. (Luke 17:15-16)

Of the ten men who begged for Jesus to heal them, who had so much faith in Jesus that they obeyed him, and who had such trust that they turned away from Jesus toward the priest before seeing the healing, only one of them stopped and turned back to thank Jesus. And he wasn’t just anyone. He was a Samaritan. Jews despised Samaritans, and Samaritans despised Jews. The only grateful leper was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:17-18)

It’s as if Jesus is saying to the nine, “You trusted that God could heal you, and you were begging that he would. Then God did it! So where’s your gratitude?” Notice here the humility of Jesus. He didn’t say, “Was no one found to return and thank me?” No, he was grieved that his Father didn’t receive the praise he deserved. He wasn’t thinking of himself at all.

Part of me doesn’t want to be too hard on these nine. They probably couldn’t wait to get to the priest so he could declare them healed. They wanted to get to their families. The one thing on their minds was hugging their loved ones, maybe for the first time in years.

But only one leper was filled with gratitude. He was so filled with gratitude that he turned back, before getting to a priest, and fell and worshiped Jesus. 

“And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19)

Jesus knew this leper’s heart. He saw not only faith and gratitude for the healing but faith for something else as well. Those words “made you well” literally mean “saved you.” I believe that for this leper there was more than physical healing involved. I believe this leper had more than faith in Jesus’s ability to heal.

I believe this leper had faith, that incredible gift from God, in Jesus as the Christ, as God’s only Son who would one day die to pay for his sins. I believe that on that day this leper received the gift of eternal life.

That’s what I believe. But what we know is that this leper had gratitude. He knew he was healed, he could feel healing and strength coursing through his body. And his first thought was to give thanks. 

How often do we give thanks for what we have? In a world full of selfishness, greed, and materialism, we desperately need gratitude to come back in style. 

My question for you is — are you one of the nine? Or will you be the one?

If you’re constantly wanting more and better and bigger and newer, will you stop every day to thank God for all that he’s done for you? Instead of longing for something else, will you stop and thank God for what he’s given you?

If you have little, will you still thank God for what you have? If you have much, will you acknowledge that what you have is not yours due to your great intelligence or business savvy, or even work ethic; it’s yours simply because God chose to let you have it? 

Will you be the one?

Series Navigation

The Lost Attitude of Contentment >>