Everyday Deserves a Chance

This morning, I decided to start a new devotional. It is another Max Lucado book called Everyday Deserves a chance. The devotion today talked about being grateful for every day. Not just every day, but every minute of every day. Every activity...every thought.

It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance, but raised their voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Luke 17:11-13

Max Lucado goes onto describe the horrible nature of lepers appearance. They were awful to look at and they sounded almost as bad as they looked. Most people turned their backs on these people...but not Jesus. He had compassion.

The definition of compassion in my bible is~loving sympathy; empathy

The word love is defined as~strong affection, desire or devotion.

The kind of love that Christ shares we talked about a few weeks back...agape~ meaning unconditional, unearned

Jesus did not turn his back on the lepers when everyone else did because he had compassion. He had sympathy that came out of love. He had a love for those men that no one else could find it in their heart to posses.

"Go and show yourselves to the priests.' They went, and while still on their way, they became clean."

Luke 17:14

When one of them saw that he was healed, he went back to Jesus, praising God in a loud voice. Then he bowed down at Jesus' feet and thanked him. (And this man was a Samaritan.) Jesus said, "Weren't there ten men healed? Where are the other nine? Is this Samaritan the only one who came back to thank God?"

Luke 17: 15-18

It is important to have a grateful heart everyday. Jesus healed these men and they were so wrapped up in his Glory that they forgot to thank him.

Yesterday I was a little bummed it was Monday...I don't really like Mondays. The weekends are so great having Coach and the boys at home. But Monday came and went. Instead of complaining, I should have been thanking God for blessing me with that day and all it brought forth. All in all, it was a pretty great day. Now on to Tuesday. Grateful. Today, be grateful for the good, the bad and even the ugly. And Heaven knows there can be ugly. Embrace it and be sure to say thanks.

Thank you Lord for the opportunity to see your compassion through the bad times.

Amy