Matthew 8:1~4
1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
God is the creator. God created the world, heaven and earth, for His Son, Jesus Christ, so every place in the world is his for mission (Hebrews 1:2). He created everything in heaven and earth, so everything in this world is in His hand (Colossians 1:15-17). He created the human race to rule over all the creatures and He created us in the image of God as the lord of creation, the masterpiece of God (Genesis 1:26-27). He saw all that He had made, and it was very good (Genesis 1:28-31).
God gave us the law. Even in the world, you are happy and free when you keep the law. However, if you break the law, you will be punished by the law and you are responsible for everything you have done. Likewise, if you break the law before God, you have to be punished by God's law. God told the first man Adam, not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden for when he ate of it he would surely die. However, Adam broke His command because of the devil who is perished forever by breaking God's law (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6).
Human beings disobeyed and ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil by the devil and broke God's law so he surely died (Genesis 3:4-6, 2:16-17). Like this, the human race broke God's law and committed sin. Therefore, the soul was dead and the body can live through painful toil all the days of its life (Genesis 3:18-19).
After the death of the body, you should go to hell which is unbearable and live there forever (Matthew 25:41). To save us from this desperate situation, Jesus Christ carried all our sins and saved us from sin and ruin. He became our saviour legally (John 3:16; Mark 10:45). This is the greatest harvest for believers.
Our status has been completely changed from death to life, from cursed to blessed, from suffering in hell to happiness in heaven and from impossibility to possibility. All of those things happened by Jesus Christ who shed His blood on the cross (Ephesians 2:1-7).
Therefore, the Bible commands people, who have received the grace, to give thanks (Matthew 8:1-4). The law also teaches clearly the fact that people receiving God's grace should give thanks to Him (Deuteronomy 16:15, 16:17; Luke 21:1-4). A life of giving thanks to the Lord in all circumstances is the absolute will of God while we are living as body and soul by His grace. Then we also do not put out the Spirit's fire, hold on to the good and avoid every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:18-22).
Dear brothers and sisters, let's give thanks to God for the grace great and small in our lives. Since our souls were spared from hell by Jesus Christ and we have received everlasting happy kingdom, heaven, as our inheritance, we have to give thanks to God for Jesus Christ achieving all this by shedding His blood.
Let's give thanks for a healthy body, healing and delivering from temptation and all wrong. Also, let's give thanks for more blessings, power and the grace that God will give us tomorrow. I want you to praise, pray, give thanks and offer freely, to confess and testify that you are living by God's grace and you have received, saved, obtained life as your inheritance, and got into the kingdom heaven, where you will live forever. Let's show the amount of the grace we have received by giving thanks certainly to God who has had mercy on us.
2013.7.7
