adminReproduced below are excerpts of a sermon delivered by Emmanuel Makandiwa on February 7, 2016. “And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.” (Luke 17:17-19).
After Jesus healed the 10 lepers, only one of them returned to thank Him for the miracle. As a result, he got something that the rest of his friends never got, wholeness.
He attracted something extra simply by being grateful, which means if you are not grateful in life you will never operate at the same level with those that are grateful. Jesus had wholeness all the while, but He could not offer it until somebody was willing to pay for it through gratitude.
In life, wholeness is only given to those that are grateful. Gratitude has to be found within your system as an individual.
The reason why some people are broke is not because they are not hard working, but they are lazy to say thank you. It is surprising that after being helped, you hear people saying “I do not know how to thank you” but, if you do something wrong to them they know how to revenge and fight back.
People do not know how to thank a person who does them good, but when someone does something bad they already have the response and words to say.
If a person blesses you, why would you say that “I do not know how to thank you?” If you do not know what to say then you have to learn how to be grateful.
When you appreciate and thank the person who has helped you, you will trigger them to bring out another good thing that was hidden inside them waiting for the price called gratitude.
When you do something good for somebody and he appears like he was expecting it, like somebody who is not surprised at all and he is even looking at what you are left with expecting more, you will not be motivated to give out more.
The Bible in the Book of Timothy mentions that in the last days people will be ungrateful. (For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. 2 Timothy 3:2).
Being unthankful has now become the spirit of the age. In the theme scripture we read, what was surprising to Jesus was that the Jews were not grateful to Him yet the Samaritan was able to express his gratitude to Him.
From this story of the grateful Samaritan, it is a revelation that even God Himself had to realise that of every 10 people He blesses, only one has this anointing of gratitude. Of the 10 people you help in life, only one person has mastered the art of gratitude. People do not know how to be grateful, which means they can never get the best out of people.
You have to try the best you can to extract the best out of people you meet in life. Before you say what you want to say you have to think about it. Think about the consequences and what might be triggered by what you are about to say.
You have to anticipate the next level you would extract from any person. After the Samaritan was healed from leprosy, he came back and expressed gratitude to Jesus then he received wholeness.
You have to thank people for loving you and for choosing you. You have to thank even your boss for giving you a salary even if you think you have worked for it.
It should not be difficult for you to be grateful. Every person you meet will always open a small door for you and when you enter through that door, you have to know the language of the man. You have to know how to converse and learn the art of dialogue.
When you enter through the small gate into the life of a successful person you have to understand his language. When you begin to say words that are so appealing to him you will realise that he has another greater door that he will open for you again.
The more you master his language, the deeper he will continue opening doors for you into his life. In the Bible, there is a man who was never born again, he never paid tithe and was never baptised, but he knew what to say to Jesus while he was hanging on the cross and a door was opened for him.
He never addressed Jesus as a thief, but as a King who has a Kingdom. There is a king in every person and when you speak to that king inside, you will always get a kingly response.
It is only when you address that kingly personality inside of a man that you will begin to get a response from the king that you never got before.
The same man that can heal you can make you whole, but maybe the price for the healing is lesser than the price for wholeness.
If you have ever received anything from a person and that was the last time you got anything from that person, maybe you were not grateful enough.
Many people before they can give you their best they will start by giving you their least. The smallest they have is what they will start with as a way of investigating whether they are giving to the right person.
You also need to understand that delayed gratitude is equals to not being thankful as well. It is not many people who will give you their best at first.
They will give you something small to test whether they are giving to the right person. Most people who gave you something and they stopped, maybe it is because you did not understand the language of the man.
They opened a small door for you and you did not know what to do to get the bigger door opened for you. You need to learn to be grateful to people that have helped you.
People that are close to you should always get the best out of you if they are doing their best to get it from you. Allow them to access the best and the wholeness from you.
Online Reporter