LUKE 17:11-19  “11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

In 1620, 102 Pilgrims had come to this continent to build a new world where they would be free to worship God. Soon fifty-six died due to starvation, disease and the cold winter. However, they did not give up. In 1621, 46 surviving Pilgrims and 91 Indians met to give thanks for a bountiful harvest and for the preservation of their lives.
They had every reason to be depressed and discouraged, but they chose to give thanks.  They came to the New World without a clue what hardships and dangers awaited them but chose to trust God’s provision.  God did just that by using an Indian named Squanto. The Pilgrims were a Godly group but were unprepared for a hard winter and with no idea of how to grow crops.  The Indians were a pagan people with no exposure to the English language or Christianity.  But God used the evil actions of some Englishmen as well as kindnesses of other Englishmen to prepare Squanto for a special but vital role.  God answered the Pilgrim’s prayers, who were in desperate need seeking God’s help, thru an unlikely Indian.  God prepared Squanto to not only help the Pilgrims but to gain a saving knowledge of Christ and teach the Wampaoag Indians English and guide them to the Pilgrims to teach them about Christ too.  Squanto endured being taken from his people but was spared the disease that would wipe out his entire village.  Squanto could have died without knowing Christ along with the rest of his village, but God chose to spare his life and for a special task.  Even though he would die a few years later, he died knowing Christ and also knowing he had helped save the lives of a special group of people.  The Pilgrims were a devout group of Christians who came to America to escape persecution but also at God’s call to share Christ with the native Indians.  Granted, the focus of the first year was just to survive but God put in their hearts to respond with an act of celebration and gratitude to God for provision and for the help of Squanto and the Indian natives he lived with.  See Squanto Biography below.

So why did God allow the Pilgrims to suffer so as well as Squanto and his village?  Why did he continue to allow some sinful European immigrants to bring harm and death to the native Indians taking their land and waring against them.  Most of the Indians were peaceful and willing to share their land and skills with the immigrants. What would America look like today if God’s plan had been followed and America’s Indians were all evangelized by faithful Christians?  If those after the Pilgrims would have been as faithful and Christ like as they.

As we look at today’s scripture, we don’t know how long these 10 lepers had endured rejection, isolation, and agony and slow death their disease demanded.  They had no hope of healing until Jesus came along.  At the sight of Jesus they shouted and begged for mercy.  10 were healed but 9 missed out on an added blessing of a relationship with the one who created them and healed them. Was it asking too much to stop and say thank you?  Well they all were exciting and just like an exciting child at Christmas who tears into their Christmas presents without thanking their parents and  especially thanking Christ who’s birthday they are celebrating.

Yes we are approaching a special holiday.  The day we, in the USA set aside to thank God for the free country He gave and allowed us to live in but also the mission and calling God established the USA to do. To, like Israel, evangelize the world.  America has done that in years past sending missionaries to most of the world.  Many American missionaries still are following that call and many faithful American Christians still support those missionaries and native Christians serving in other countries.  But America leadership and most have forgotten the God of the Pilgrims, the God of our founding fathers, and instead follow the god of self and humanism and worse.  The God of Christmas and Easter is being replaced with secular holidays and even outlawing any mention or public display of Christ and the real meaning of these Days.

Well Thanksgiving is another special Holy Day with family and friends.  Yet special meals like Thanksgiving with family reflect God’s dream if includes family expressing gratitude to God for His abiding presence. Yet how many Thanksgiving meals begin without even taking time to give thanks to God for His bounty but so many more blessings He showers not just those who live in USA but every country, even in countries who’s leadership and majority are hostile toward Christians.

Stop this November, but especially on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, and count your blessings and take notice of all God has done for you and take some time to thank Him.  Thank Him because He deserves our thanks.  Thank Him because doing so draws us closer to Him.  Thank Him because God has commanded us to give thanks for our benefit.

Thank God because:

He gives us life with an amazing body and abilities to function, think, see, hear, feel, love, and ….

He offers us forgiveness for our sins and a fresh start and eternal life with Him and…

He abides with us and guides and helps and protects us and …

He gave us family and those who love us and His Word to guide us with countless examples and wise council to guide us but most of a loving relationship with Himself not diluted or distracted by the same relationship He also has with millions of others.

He is perfect and all powerful and eternal and everywhere at the same time and all the time.  He never sleeps nor fails.  He is dependable and trustworthy like none other.

He has prepared an eternal home with an eternal perfect body but most of all a eternal home with our loves ones who know Him and with Himself.

He will win over the adversary of our souls and the world we live in.

He hears and answers our prayers and is not distracted from answering our prayers because of the prayers of others.

He uses even personal suffering and tragedy and pain to bring great good to us.  We can’t loose when we put our trust in Him no matter what we endure for a time.

He is Sovereign and unlimited in strength and wisdom and in His saving Love….

I invite you to reflect and pray and continue this list.  I know I will because it is not complete.  The list is infinite because He is infinite and His blessings are infinite.  “The half as not been told or noticed”.

GRATITUDE: IT’S WAY MORE THAN AN ATTITUDE!
IT IS A DECISION AND AN ACTION :           Luke 17:15, Philippians 4:4-7, Colossians 3:17

IT IS AN ACT OF HUMILITY  :                       Luke 17:16, Deuteronomy 8:11-17

IT DRAWS US CLOSER TO GOD  :             Luke 17:12 and 16, Psalm 100:4, James 4:7-10, Romans 1:21

IT IS GOD’S WILL  :                                      1 Thessalonians 5:18, Ephesians 5:19

Deut 8:11-17 “11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”

Squanto Biography   (c. 1580–c. 1622)

Synopsis:    Squanto was born circa 1580 near Plymouth, Massachusetts. Little is known about his early life. In 1614, he was kidnapped by English explorer Thomas Hunt, who brought him to Spain where he was sold into slavery. Squanto escaped, eventually returning to North America in 1619. He then returned to the Patuxet region, where he became an interpreter and guide for the Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth in the 1620s. He died circa November 1622 in Chatham, Massachusetts.                                                                                                                                                           Early Life and Capture:   Born circa 1580 near Plymouth, Massachusetts, Squanto, also known as Tisquantum, is best remembered for serving as an interpreter and guide for the Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth in the 1620s. Historians know little about Squanto’s life. A Patuxet Indian born in present-day Massachusetts, Squanto is believed to have been captured as a young man along the Maine coast in 1605 by Captain George Weymouth, who had been commissioned by Plymouth Company owner Sir Ferdinando Gorges to explore the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, and reportedly captured Squanto, along with four Penobscots, because he thought his financial backers in Britain might want to see some Indians.  Weymouth brought Squanto and the other Indians to England, where Squanto lived with Ferdinando Gorges, who taught him English and hired him to be an interpreter and guide.                                                                                                                                     Interpreter and Guide for the Pilgrims:   Now fluent in English, Squanto returned to his homeland in 1614 with English explorer John Smith, possibly acting as a guide, but was captured again by another British explorer, Thomas Hunt, and sold into slavery in Spain. Squanto escaped, lived with monks for a few years, and eventually returned to North America in 1619, only to find his entire Patuxet tribe dead from smallpox. He went to live with the nearby Wampanoags.  In 1621, Squanto was introduced to the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and subsequently acted as an interpreter between Pilgrim representatives and Wampanoag Chief Massasoit. In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims and Wampanoags celebrated the first Thanksgiving after reaping a successful crop. The following year, Squanto deepened the Pilgrims’ trust by helping them find a lost boy, and assisted them with planting and fishing. Squanto’s unique knowledge of the English language and English ways gave him power. He sought to increase his status among other native groups by exaggerating his influence with the colonists and even going so far as to tell them that the English had storage pits containing the plague and would release it if they didn’t do what he wanted.                                                                                                                                   Death:  Embroiled in the politics emerging between the settlers and the local tribes, Squanto died of a fever in Chatham, Massachusetts, circa November 1622, while acting as a guide for Governor William Bradford.