And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God (Luke 17:15 KJV)
We must learn and know to glorify God. In the context of the referenced scripture, our blessed Savior illustrated the need and blessing in glorifying God. Ten lepers had met the Lord Jesus and had been divinely impacted that they experienced a cleansing by the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ to them.
Sin is a term or form of spiritual leprosy; sin denotes leprosy spiritually. This is the state of everyman. According to the scriptures, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 KJV) in that state, all men were separated from God, opposed to the nature of God and could not approach unto God except by the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is about this rescue and cleansing that the Bible says, “…ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10). Notice the Bible says, “in time past were not a people, but are now a people of God:” this is the salvation plan that Jesus brought and delivered. Being cleansed from the leprosy of sin and justified by faith we are reconciled unto God but must now live a life that glorifies God.
Ten represents responsibility or completeness of order. Take for instance the Ten commandments, they codified the complete order of God’s demand of man or the responsibility of Man toward God. The Ten lepers represented Man’s colossal failure at fulfilling God’s righteous demands but Jesus came to cleanse Man from the stain and guilt of sin…“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” (Romans 3:24-25 KJV).
Now being justified by Faith, like that one leper who returned to give thanks to Jesus Christ, we need and must return in newness of life to live and lead a lifestyle that glorifies God. This is the “thanksgiving’ fit and required of us. The Bible actually describes it thus, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2 KJV)
Beloved, having received cleansing from the nature and rule of sin that had separated us from God, we must return to God to serve Him in a newness of life that glorifies God as a worthy and deserving thanksgiving to Him who restored us to Himself…this is our reasonable service.
