The Alpha of The Grateful Samaritan

UV 3151/10000 The Alpha of the Grateful Samaritan
And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan
Luke 17 v 16
Alpha is the word of God that is applied or a promise that is appropriated by faith. It is teaching that is immediately applicable to our lives to make us shine more for the glory of God. It is the beginning of a new stream of blessing, understanding, wisdom and grace in our lives that as it develops influences and impacts us in 360 degrees. In this uni-verse, we hear the story of the other Samaritan, not the good one but the grateful Samaritan. We can immediately identify and empathise with him when we realize we too were once ( in our B C period when we did not know Jesus ) spiritual lepers. Our moral and nervous system was crippled and our hearts calloused and hardened, our spiritual eyes were covered with scales that blinded us from seeing or experiencing the grace, mercy and love of God in Christ.
The Samaritan was the tenth and last of the lepers and least expected to return to praise and worship God after receiving a miraculous healing on believing and obeying the words of Jesus. Yet, he remained the only one to return to Jesus and he fell on his face at the feet of Jesus, thanking Him again and again. We too need to like the grateful Samaritan fall at the feet of Jesus and thank Him again and again for our salvation, for the healing of our spiritual leprosy. In ancient Israel when a leper was healed, he was to show himself to the priest in the temple and receive an anointing with sanctified oil. The ten lepers received healing as they went towards the temple to show themselves as instructed by Jesus. The words of Jesus was at work in them to produce healing and salvation. Nine received healing but only the Samaritan received both healing and salvation. He was so grateful that he did not wait till he saw the priest but he returned immediately and spontaneously and wholeheartedly praised and thanked God. He had led a hopeless life that far for leprosy was then an incurable disease. A leper was ostracised and lived on the fringes of society. His own family did not receive him. He lived off alms received in begging. But the encounter with Jesus had healed him, made him whole once more, restored him as a child of God, a full citizen of the kingdom of God. He like us received blessings from the Father’s hands not as alms cast into our laps but as rights reserved for the children of God. Till the moment of his complete healing, he lived a fractional life, every faculty of his was a fraction of its potential, every organ or member of his body was a fraction of what it once was. Now, having been made whole again, he is filled with a mixture of joy, love, faith, thanksgiving, praise, awe, wonder, excitement that causes him to run back to worship Jesus, the manifestation of God on Earth.
It was not as if the leper thanked Jesus once and forgot therefore, but his heart witnessed a ceaseless flow of gratitude to God all the remaining days of his life and manifested in all that he said and did in life. Like the grateful Samaritan leper, we need to spend some time every day on our face at the feet of Jesus, thanking and praising Him for the healing of our leprous souls, the anointing of our spirits. Jesus will then commend our faith and ask us to “Get up and go your way. Your faith has made you whole.” We will be whole people, not fractions of people. We enjoy holistic salvation and blessings in Christ. A grateful attitude is a complete attitude for it includes gratitude, a great attitude and a gracious attitude.