By Michael A. Milton
Now
we get to where I want to go. How does Naaman response? These are the lessons
for our lives this Thanksgiving from Naaman’s Thanksgiving.
Lesson
Number One: Naaman’s Thanksgiving was a response to God’s grace. He returned
to thank God through thanking Elisha because Naaman was healed.
That
this great man had leprosy reminds us that no matter how blessed we think we
are, we are also all marked by sin. The Bible teaches us that we are all sinners
and that Jesus Christ will heal us of the leprosy of our souls, sin, and that
He will make us white as snow. If you have been healed of sin, forgiven, cleansed
and given a new life, your response is to come to Christ.
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In
the Gospel of Luke, there were ten men who came to the Lord for healing of their
leprosy.2
Of the ten, only one returned to give thanks to Jesus. And that one
was a Samaritan, a foreigner. But while the others had a physical healing that
would last for a while and then they would one day die, the man who returned
came to worship Jesus. And that man was cleansed: deeply, completely, and fully.
He was forgiven. His leprosy was healed, but even more importantly, his soul
was healed. Though he would die, yet he would live again.
I
remember being in Plymouth to visit the plantation there. We visited the living
history village where our Pilgrim forefathers had that first Thanksgiving. As
we toured the museum, we noticed that historians have argued about what really
happened on that first Thanksgiving. Much of what they are doing is re-writing
our older understanding. For instance, the idea that the Pilgrims actually watched
the Detroit Lions play the Dallas Cowboys has now been revealed as just faulty
oral tradition! Well, for all of the tampering with the story, even the most
secular minded, faith-bashing historians cannot escape this one point: the Pilgrims
were not thanking the Indians. They were not thanking each other. They were
worshipping God. Thanksgiving was an act of worship to the God of grace who
had saved their souls. Thanksgiving came out of an awareness of who they were
and who God is and what He did for them.
If
your life has been transformed by God’s grace, then that grace will transform
your Thanksgiving into an act of genuine worship to the One who has healed you.
Lesson
Number Two: Naaman’s Thanksgiving was a confession of God’s glory.
His
healing led to a confession of God, the one and only Lord of all.
Thanksgiving
is not just pausing to say that something out there bigger than we are is giving
us some lucky breaks. Thanksgiving is not just saying, “Thank my lucky stars”
or “Life has smiled on me.” That is meaningless. Thanksgiving for Naaman was
a rejection of false gods who were powerless to heal him and receiving the God
of Israel who alone is the God of all.