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“Where are the nine?” Pastor Xiaofeng

Scripture: Luke 17:11 Jesus went to Jerusalem, passing through Samaria and Galilee. 【Luke 17:12】 Entering a village, ten maniacs of marijuana came towards them, standing far away. Luke 17:13 Say aloud, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Luke 17:14 When Jesus saw it, he said to them, Go and show your body to the priests. They were clean when they went. Luke 17:15 One of them, seeing that he was well, returned to glory and God with a loud voice. Luke 17:16 And he fell at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. This man was a Samaritan. 【Luke 17:17】 Jesus said, Isn’t it ten who are cleansed? Where are the nine? Luke 17:18 Except this foreigner, will no one return to glory and God? Luke 17:19 And say to the man, Get up and go. Your letter saved you.

Preface:

Last week’s passage speaks of the office and duty of Christ’s servant, the incomparable grace to be a servant of Christ, the obedience to all commands of Christ is due, and obedience is not merit but duty and glory. It is not that God is harsh on us, ignoring our needs, only allowing us to sacrifice and consume our lives, but it is the love of Christ urging us to keep running, giving us more grace and power, joy and satisfaction in the process of service, and it is in this process that He Himself builds us up and makes our lives more abundant.

Therefore, no one ever gave it to God first and God will pay it back to Him later (Rom 11:35), and it is always God who gives grace first, then grace, and then grace, grace. Today’s passage addresses the most basic duties of those who receive grace and God’s willingness to give greater, unexpected grace.

Ten cannabis patients

In this story, Luke first states the time and place of the event, or more precisely the context in which it occurred. This occurred on Jesus’ way to Jerusalem and indicates that Jesus was marching toward God’s time of passion. This reminds us that the signs and wonders that Jesus performed along the way all happened in the process toward this goal, and were for this goal. This is when John the Baptist had doubts in his heart and asked the Lord Jesus, “Is it you who is going to be?” Or do we wait for someone else? (Matthew 11:3), the Lord’s answer to him: “Go and tell John what you have heard and seen; That is, the blind see, the lame walk, the cleansing of the wind, the deaf see, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is anyone who does not fall because of me” (Matthew 11:4-6). Even, the renunciation of Jesus by the grace of nine Jews here already implies the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews in Jerusalem.

“Passing through Samaria and Galilee, into a village”

And specifically indicate the peculiarities of this place, at the junction of Samaria and Galilee. Galilee, though despised by Jerusalem, belonged to the Jewish zone, and Samaria was completely condemned and rejected by Jerusalem because of its historical blood and faith mixed with Gentile paganism, and the Jews hated them even more than other Gentiles.

Although the Jews regarded the Samaritans as impure in their faith, the Samaritans regarded the Torah as their canon, so those who were despised and despised were treated according to the laws and regulations of Leviticus. Lepers are to live in isolation, and they themselves “shall be torn apart and unkempt, covering their lips, and crying out, Unclean, unclean.” He is unclean in the days when plague is upon him, and since he is unclean, he will live alone outside the camp” (Lev. 13:45-46).

As a result of their common suffering, the Jewish lepers and the Samaritans lived in a village (this so-called village may have been a quarantine colony specially prepared for lepers). Jews and Samaritans are far from each other, and those who are separated by them live together because of their isolation. Of course, they were forced to live in the same village (which is unlikely under normal circumstances), or they may still keep their distance from each other in their daily lives. But at the very least, being isolated by their own ethnic groups has in a sense allowed them to break through some of the barriers between their original ethnic groups. When the world is far from them, some kind of bondage of the world on them is also far from them. So much so that they could come together as a group of ten to seek Jesus. If suffering can awaken people from sin, break through some of the constraints of sin, and make people seek God, then suffering has meaning. But what pains God is that sinners, often when the pain is relieved, often slip into sin again and suffer a lot in vain. So what really keeps them away from each other is their distance from God, and what really brings people closer to each other is our closeness to God.

“There are ten long cannabis winds coming on”

The Lord Jesus came specifically for them so they could face Jesus. Although the village is isolated, it is not completely isolated, and the basic supplies of life still need to be sent by family and friends from the surrounding villages. Apparently, these ten cannabis patients somehow heard some things about Jesus, such as the signs and wonders that Jesus performed, many speculations and rumors about Jesus’ identity, and so on. So when they heard that Jesus had come to this village, they seized the opportunity and came to meet Jesus. Although they did not dare to get too close according to the rules of the law, only “stood far away,” they “cried out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Their courage to come to Jesus, their deepest desire for healing, and even in some ways, their daring to act and cry out through hearsay is already an expression of faith.

Since it is a village, there may be more than these ten lepers. If there are other people, but only these ten lepers come to meet Jesus, it shows that the rest of the people are completely desperate in their hearts, and they have little hope for their own lives or healing. They also heard about Jesus’ fame and deeds, but it touched them little and expected nothing from Jesus. They were so dead in their hearts that they didn’t even have the slightest idea of getting up and trying to get a chance if they could be healed. And these ten people, regardless of their heart’s desires and thoughts, can come to Jesus to show that they have not given up on their lives, and they still have longing; The rest, though alive, are already dead. As long as there is still the breath of life, a little power to act, and a slight possibility, it means that God’s grace is still there, then we should seize any possible opportunity to seek help to solve those problems in our lives that we cannot do anything about.

For Christians, never despair as long as your God is still there. Even if you look at yourself and the environment, there is no possibility of rational judgment of many things, and there is no hope in your feelings, but as long as you still believe in your heart that God is real and He is willing to help us, then you should have hope and persevere. God may not solve problems when and how we expect, but God can solve them, and God’s solutions are better than we hope. Christians should have greater courage and faith than these ten lepers to ask the Lord Jesus for His grace to heal our weaknesses and sickness.

“Go, show the body to the priests”

Usually, after the miracles that healed the sick with marijuana, the Lord Jesus commanded them to “go and examine their bodies to the priests and offer the gifts that Moses commanded to testify to the people” (Matthew 8:4). But this time Jesus’ healing of these ten lepers was very different from the previous healing of lepers. For example, all three books of the Synoptic Gospels record, “A man with a long wind came to worship Him and said, If the Lord wills, he will make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him and said, I will, you are clean. His cannabis wind is immediately cleansed” (Matthew 2-3, Mark 1 40-43, Luke 5:12-13). This time Jesus did not touch them or promise to heal, but requested for them to show their bodies to the priests.

This can be seen as a challenge to their level of confidence. When Jesus said this, he was already giving a promise of healing. The Lord Jesus was well aware of Leviticus’ rules of etiquette for returning to the community after a leper’s purification, and that only before being cleansed could he go to the priests for examination. If the Lord Jesus did not give the grace of healing, but asked them to show their bodies to the priests, and the priests saw that they were still marijuana, was this not deceiving and teasing them? Therefore, since he sent these ten people directly to the priest, the implicit meaning was that he had already healed you, but you have not seen it yet, and you do not know exactly when you will have to heal, either at the beginning of the departure, or when the high priest is coming, but this grace has already been given.

They begged, and Jesus answered. Now is the time for them to respond to Jesus’ words. But they have not seen their bodies healed at this moment, they have not seen it with their own eyes at this moment! But they heard the order to go to the priests. According to the law, after purification, you can go; Now, only the word of Jesus, which has not yet been cleansed, has been asked to go. The tension in this order is a great challenge to confidence. The response in an ideal state of faith is that these people have the confidence that “I have not seen it now, but I believe that I have already attained it” (Mark 11:24), then the person can naturally go to the priest with a body still covered in marijuana. When he walked to the priest, he probably thought to himself, Maybe I will be healed as soon as I lift my foot? Maybe I’m halfway through the healing moment? I don’t know exactly when, but since Jesus said, let me go, then He must have cleansed me at some point before the priests saw me. The response in the second stage of faith is that the person may be thinking, “Is this man named Jesus reliable?” nor pray for us, nor declare that I am healed; Instead of letting me see the healing, he asked me to go to the priest, hey, let the dead horse be a living horse doctor, since he said, I’ll give it a try, what if it’s just halfway? ”。 This latter state of mind, we feel that this cannot be called confidence, at most it is called helplessness under desire; None of this can be called submission, at most an attempt. But because they are faced with such desires and attempts from the Son of the Living God, this half-belief can also be seen as a kind of faith, and obedience with doubts in the heart is also obedience. The mental state of these ten people is likely to be this latter one.

“They were clean when they went”

Regardless of the mentality and thoughts inside them, after all, they really went. They also really had the fruits of their obedience. Luke’s account does not specify exactly at what moment the miracle of healing befell them. It may be that they are healed halfway, or they may find out that they are healed when they are about to reach the priests and the more they are healed, the greater the challenge to their faith. But from Luke’s context, it is very likely that they were healed not when they were about to see the priests, but that they were healed as soon as they left the village.

It was such a “weak” and half-believing faith that caused them to experience incredible miracles in their lives! God is a generous God! This scene should be a momentous moment in their hearts and worth telling everyone they see. Because for a cannabis patient, their biggest dream in life is to be healed and return to a normal life. At this moment, their life dream has come true because of meeting Jesus. It was just an unrealistic expectation in a dream, but it came true. Their hearts at this moment may be in shock, ecstasy, or helpless gaffes, crying, we don’t know how they feel and behave at this time, if someone has experienced that kind of desperate life, experienced that kind of expectation but knows that there is no possibility, what happened, may be able to experience one or two.

After being healed, what do they do next? Although the story is a major miraculous event, Luke’s pen seems to be deliberately downplaying the color of signs and wonders, and there is only one sentence for this extremely important event that happened to these ten men, “They were cleansed when they went.” I think it’s likely that Luke was there to highlight subsequent twists in the story; The twist that follows is the peak of this story.

Only one came back to thank God

These ten found themselves cleansed and healed. Then they split into two teams, and the nine men continued “according to what Jesus had commanded” to go to the priests. One man, however, “did not obey Jesus’ command” and went to the priests, but returned to Jesus. Cannabis patients were not only isolated from the crowd in the Old Testament law, but if they were healed, they could not return to the community on their own, but they needed to go to the priest first, have the priest check it, isolate them in the camp for another seven days (presumably seven more days of observation), and undergo a very complicated sacrificial ritual to bring them back into the congregation.

“One of the people inside saw that he was well and came back”

90% chose to go to the priests, and only one chose to come to Jesus. The man’s reaction seemed to be a minority and unusual. From the self-centeredness of human nature, the good things that have been dreamed of have happened, the great miracle has been performed on themselves, and in ecstasy, they hurry up to complete the rest of the procedures, the sooner they return to the family and normal society, the better, and everything else can be put aside first, lest if something happens in the middle, it is not good that the good life that they seem to have been within their reach slips away from their hands. The moment when years of pain are about to be lifted and incomparable expectations are about to be fulfilled can be tense and frightening, and all their hearts are already devoted to this matter, or filled and overwhelmed by this event. Jesus? Let’s wait until the normal life we have so much hoped for is really implemented.

But from the conscience that remains in human nature, after seeing such a great healing miracle that happened to him, didn’t he immediately think of thanking God and expressing gratitude to the Jesus who let them go to the priesthood? But only one out of ten was such a reaction. When he saw the grace of healing, he did not go to the priest first but immediately returned to Jesus. For the other nine people, the most important thing after being healed was to go to the priests to return to normal life, and to thank Jesus was not a priority. For this person, it is most important to find Jesus first after receiving grace, and then how other things will proceed. Most likely, the Samaritan knew that if he followed the rules of the law, it would be at least seven days after seeing Jesus again, and that would have to be the first time he could find Jesus after seven days of quarantine. Therefore, the person’s reaction is a normal one, having been healed, and it is okay to go to the priest to check at any time, but it is not always possible to ask Jesus to express thanksgiving, as the Lord Jesus said, “For there are always poor people with you, and you can do good to them at any time, but you do not always have me” (Mark 14:7).

This may be the choice we face when we meet Jesus today and receive grace, is it the first choice to enjoy life after receiving grace in this world, or the first choice to come back to Jesus first to express gratitude? Do we put the gracious God first, or do we put the grace of God first?

“Fall at Jesus’ feet and thank Him”

Luke records that this man “saw that he was well and returned to glorify God with a loud voice, and he fell at Jesus’ feet to thank Him.” The juxtaposition of glory and God and prostrate at Jesus’ feet to thank Him makes it clear that this man worshipped Jesus as God.

The man apparently realized that it was God’s glory that appeared to him through Jesus. If he had been familiar with the Old Testament Law and knew that healing the cannabis wind was one of the hallmarks of the coming ministry of the Messiah, it is likely that he had already begun to think and had faith that Jesus was the Messiah under the guidance and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is mysterious, but not completely incomprehensible. The knowledge of the laws of the past, the thirst for God’s thoughts, the miraculous healing grace he received today, and the thanksgiving of the Holy Spirit in his heart led to not only the miraculous grace of healing his body but also the greater grace of awakening of his heart. In this sense, his return to bow down to Jesus and express his gratitude is a manifestation of God’s greater grace in him, not only as an expression of his gratitude for Jesus’ previous healing grace but also as an expression of God’s kindness to him.

And from the normal rationality of a person, if a person has spiritual knowledge and actual grace comes, but does not come to seek God, the person’s sin cannot be blamed. Just as soon after the birth of the Lord Jesus, three doctors from the East came to worship Him, but it is not known in which city, the Jewish chief priests and folk scribes very skillfully, professionally, and definitively quoted the Old Testament prophets as telling them in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:5-6) in Judah. What is amazing is not their mastery of the law, but that they are done with what they say! They disregard God’s grace on two levels, one Old Testament Law and two Eastern Three Doctors. They knew that God had given them the prophecy of the Messiah and that God had sent Gentiles from the Far East to remind them that the Messiah had come. But they felt that the matter had nothing to do with them, and they were less concerned about the coming of the Messiah than Herod. Even if they had the mentality that if the Messiah was really born in Bethlehem, they would not finish and leave. They did not have the slightest search and hope for the Messiah in their hearts. They studied the law solely to satisfy their belly and vanity. The law is pure knowledge for them, touching their hearts and lives in the slightest, and they do nothing for what they know and see. The Holy Spirit no longer gives such a heart more grace.

“Where are the nine?”

Seeing that one man had returned to express his thanksgiving, the Lord Jesus sent out a triptych of questions, “Aren’t there ten cleansed?” Where are the nine? Except for this foreigner, is no one else returning to glory and God? These three questions may not be directed at the person who has returned, but primarily to the disciples. To stimulate the disciples’ thinking about this. This is not an ordinary thing, this is of course a miracle that the cannabis wind was healed, but the grace of miracles is not the focus of this matter, and two questions should be considered, ten people have received the same grace, and only one person has returned to give thanks. Having received such great grace, gratitude is only one-tenth. Lack of gratitude is not just the nine Jews here, it is a common characteristic of sinners in this world, and even it is the normal state of life in Christians (of course, it is an abnormal state of life). Compared to God’s grace, our gratitude is grossly disproportionate, and perhaps the ratio of grace to gratitude is far less than one-tenth for many people. We have so little gratitude that it seems that if we only have to verbally express a little gratitude to God, God has already received what He deserves, and we have given us a reward equivalent to God’s grace, and we are clear with God, and no one owes anyone.

Or do you still feel that I am thankful and do not continue to give me more grace? Just like a criminal person will say I apologize for everything, what else do you want, as if apology can offset the consequences of the crime. Therefore, “God blocks the proud and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Paul also says of those who have defied God’s grace, those who have received more grace but despise the grace they have received, and who treat God’s grace as normal, even abandoned, and God allows them to remain in their delusion and ignorance, Paul also says of these people: “For though they know God, they do not glorify Him as God and do not thank Him.” Their thoughts become illusory, and their ignorant hearts are dimmed. To claim to be wise is to be foolish” (Romans 1:21-22).

The nine who abandoned Jesus turned out to be Jews, but the one who returned to give thanks was a Samaritan, who was despised by the Jews. Luke specifically stated that the only person who returned to give thanks “was the Samaritan.” This is characteristic of Luke’s gospel account, which is to pay special attention to those who are despised, oppressed, marginalized, and oppressed, and the Samaritan is mentioned as people who are particularly discriminated against and excluded by the Jews. But this man, whom the Jews despised and looked down upon, did better and more pleasing to God than the Jews who thought they were more godly and knew God better. This was a big stimulus for Jews. In the fallen world, people pay more attention to those who have power, and wealth and power, people pay more attention those who are good-looking, knowledgeable, and capable, and people consciously or unconsciously despise and ignore those who have little, and regard them as the bottom and the edge; Because people measure the importance of a person by how much they have. But it is usually more difficult for people who have a lot of worldly things to rely on God.

Thus, in Luke’s writing, God is the God who cares for the widows and the sojourners, the poor, the miserable, and the miserable. This is not God’s injustice, for no one is worthy of God’s grace, as Jehovah God once said to Moses, “I will be gracious to whoever I want, and I will have mercy on whomever I want” (Exod. 33:19). His wisdom and goodness are greater than we can understand, as the apostle Paul later said, “Brethren, it is evident that you are not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, and not many honorable.” But God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise. And he chose the weak of the world and put the strong to shame. God also chose the lowly, the desolate, and the non-existent to abolish the lowly, the despised, and the nothing. so that no one of flesh and blood can boast before God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).

The word “foreigner” used by the Lord Jesus to refer to this Samaritan, which appears only in this verse in the New Testament, is said to have been used on a stone tablet at the entrance to the inner courtyard of the temple in Jerusalem, which reads, “If a Gentile enters, he will die.” The Samaritans were not eligible to enter the temple to worship God, and only Jews were allowed to enter the inner court. The Jews were proud of this, and they considered themselves chosen children to be more pleasing to God than others, so many of them entered the temple with pride, self-righteousness, and pride, especially the Pharisees (Lk 18:11). But the Jews, faced with the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the “tabernacle” of the true God appearing in the world, did not come to worship, but instead Samaritans who could not enter the temple came to worship and bow down in thanksgiving. This reminds us not only of what the Lord Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “Woman, believe in me, and the time will come, and you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”  The time has come and now is for those who truly worship the Father to worship Him in spirit and in truth, for the Father wants such people to worship Him” (John 4:21, 23). Obviously, whoever worships God in Christ worships in spirit and truth, and is a true worship of God. Christ is the manifestation of the kingdom of God in this last age, and anyone who recognizes Christ in his heart and welcomes Christ in his heart is in the kingdom of God (Lk 17:21).

This nine-to-one comparison may also imply that the Lord Jesus fulfilled what he said to the Galileans who rejected Him, that is, the prophets were not respected in their own homeland, so “at the time of the prophet Elisha, there were many madmen in Israel; But none of them are cleansed except Naman, the kingdom of Syria” (Lk 4:27). Now it’s happening again.

Your letter saved you

Miracles do not turn people to Jesus

Seeing that only this one person came back to thank Jesus, we see again that signs and wonders do not lead to repentance. The previous method of evangelizing Abraham by the rich man who was suffering in hell in the story of Lazarus the Beggar was to convince people with signs and wonders, and this is what sinners considered the most powerful method, as the apostle Paul said, “The Jews wanted miracles, and the Greeks sought wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:11). But signs and wonders can only make people prostrate themselves on the surface, and they do not make people truly obey and worship God from the heart. The visible grace exerted on the sinner does not turn the sinner’s heart, such as air, water, food, affection, order, and so on, especially the air and water food is much more precious than the healing of the disease from a certain point of view, because without air you can’t even live, if you are sick, you can at least live, but all these graces that people have received do not make the sinner feel thankful and turn their hearts to God, but the sinner feels that all this is what we deserve. Without thanksgiving for the grace that already exists, even the grace of miracle healing does not make sinners truly thankful. It can be seen that the numbness of the heart cannot be restored by externally visible grace and the poverty, hardness, and necrosis of the heart must be healed by a more transcendent spiritual grace.

But in this story, the power of signs and wonders does not even do the external prostration, and these nine people who have received God’s miracle healing grace have not even returned to thank Jesus, they have received the greatest grace in their lives other than creation, which is a life-saving grace from this world. They were finally able to return to their normal lives, and they were immediately filled with the joy of healing grace, they immediately left the gracious Jesus who had treated them behind. They regard living a normal life as their highest ideal in life; In their sight, having received such great healing grace, I had nothing to ask for, and Jesus could not give me anything more. As for whether or not to thank Him, I think they didn’t think about it, but they didn’t put it in an important place. They may feel that there are too many things more important than coming back to this Jesus of Nazareth, they have too many people and things to love, and Jesus who graces them to save them is not at the forefront. By the time they wanted to come back and look for Jesus a few days later, Jesus had already left the village. They may say with great regret, Hey, it’s a little late, people have already left, let’s look for opportunities later. When God condemns them in the future, they can’t say I went back to find them, but Jesus has already left. Was Jesus going to stay here just waiting for them to express their thanks? For them to express their gratitude, do they have to be at the right time?

The healing grace of cannabis can only bring them out of quarantine to normal society in a fallen world, but it cannot bring them from a sinful world back to God’s kingdom and to Jesus. They did receive great grace, but the way they responded to grace caused them to miss the greatest opportunity for grace in their lives.

“Your letter saved you”

The goal of signs and wonders is not simply to heal our mortal body, for healing is followed by death; So, the goal of signs and wonders is to make people think through the healing of the body, Who is this miracle, Jesus? The desire to be physically healed or to have many of the difficulties of this world resolved into the power of knowing and trusting Jesus is what miracles are all about.

We can divide the faith in this story into three levels, the first level is the faith of these ten marijuana patients who greet Jesus and cry out for mercy, the second level is the confidence that these ten people will do it after hearing Jesus’ words, and the third level is the faith that the person rushed back to glory to God as soon as he was healed and bowed down to thank Jesus. The first two faiths are shared by ten people, and these two beliefs are not so much faith as a strong desire for the body to be healed, in fact, it is not an attempt to give much hope, in case it will do! When this desire met Jesus, God truly gave them the grace of healing out of His mercy and generosity. There is a third type of faith that only this Samaritan has. The preciousness of the third type of faith is that it goes beyond the desire for physical healing and rises to the level of longing to know Jesus and be close to Him.

This faith can lead to a healing that is more precious than physical healing, that is, the salvation of the soul. When the Samaritan returned to Jesus, a sign and miracle more important than the cleansing of the marijuana occurred again, and God gave him the grace of justification throughout his life and the resurrection of his soul. The miracle of marijuana wind being healed was already undeserving, incredible grace, and what the Samaritan did not expect was that an even greater and more precious grace would come to him again.

The inner world of the other nine may be: I just want to heal, and I don’t care where this healing comes from. This man’s heart is: I have been healed, who gave this healing? Is it a desire for miracles? Or a God who longs for miracles? This is the type of confidence that is fundamentally different. Which is more important, a miracle or a God who performs miracles? Healing is grace and power, grace and power, and God who gives grace and power, which is more desired by us? The value orientation of this world is to focus more on ability than on people, and the more you have, the more people pay attention and respect to you, and vice versa. In fact, people do not pay attention to you, but to themselves, because what you have may be useful to me, and the worst of your ability should not harm me, so I treat you very seriously. This is why Jesus does not commit Himself to Jesus in the Gospels, even though many people come to embrace Jesus because He knows that many people do not desire God, but come to eat bread. People don’t care about God and therefore don’t care about the condition and whereabouts of their souls. They were healed, but they were far from Jesus, and this is what is the so-called buying and returning beads. In fact, the opportunity to meet Jesus is the greatest blessing of a person’s life, just as many people today hear the gospel. Knowing who Jesus is and following Him is the more important thing than meeting Jesus in this life, and the greatest gift and most precious gift from God is not the healing of sickness, wealth, and peace, but Jesus Himself, as the psalmist says, “My good is not outside of you” (Psalm 16:2). What matters is not freedom from disease, but freedom from sin and death.

This man’s seeking, thanksgiving, and worship of Jesus is an expression of his faith, a faith that saves not only the soul but also the body from eternal death, not temporary sickness. The salvation of the whole person is the goal of Christ to perform signs and wonders, heal the sick, and cast out demons.

“Get up, let’s go”

God does not disregard the basic needs of man or deny us our duty to our families, but He wants people to be able to prioritize, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Therefore, seeing this Samaritan who had returned to bow down in thanksgiving, the Lord Jesus told him, “Get up and go.” It is to tell this person that you can come back for the first time to express your gratitude to God and thank you for Jesus has been pleasing to God, and God has given you a greater grace, which is to know Christ. Later, the priesthood inspection and family meetings can be carried out. God has never been stingy and harsh, and sinners are often ungrateful and ungrateful.

epilogue

The Lord Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14), and in terms of man’s response to grace, it can be said that there are many who receive grace and few who are thankful. Some people seek Jesus through the grace they receive, and some people turn away from God after receiving grace because they care whether the person is more thankful to God than the person who values the grace he has received. Different responses to grace determine from a certain angle how much grace a person receives. The goal of God’s grace is never to keep people stuck in the grace that has been given, but God’s goodness, generosity, and wisdom make God’s gift always aim to give more and greater grace through the gift of grace, that is, we know, fear, close, and love God more.

A person who focuses on what he has gained in this life does not take to heart the one who gives grace. And those who focus on the blessings of this world will basically not have true satisfaction and gratitude; For no matter how much benefit is given in this life, it is always not enough, and even if a man receives the glory of all nations, it cannot satisfy it. If one tries to satisfy one’s soul with what he gains in this life, the result is endless taking and emptiness. Therefore, it is certainly worth thankful and joyful to receive many blessings in this life, but how you face the gracious Jesus is the foundation that determines the blessings of life and death.

Finally, I conclude the day with a verse written by David: “Praise the Lord, O my heart. Whoever is in me shall praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my heart, and do not forget all his favors. He forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from death and crowns you with love and mercy” (Ps. 103:1–4).