Giving Thanks

Only one of the ten lepers returned to thank Jesus for his healing (picture from freebibleimages.org).

Central Truth: We should always give thanks to God for everything he does for us.

Scriptures: Luke 17:12-19

With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us, the children and I looked at what it means to be thankful by looking at the story of the ten lepers. In this story, there were ten men who were lepers and, when they heard that Jesus was in their village, they cried for him to heal them. Jesus commanded them to go to the priests to show themselves because it was tradition that anyone healed must go to the Temple and testify about their miracle. On their way to the see the priests, all ten were miraculously healed, but only one of them returned to Jesus to give thanks. When he gave thanks for his healing, Jesus blessed him even more.

To reinforce the idea of giving thanks, I found a fun activity book online that I downloaded and passed out copies to each of the children. It contained scriptures and activities that made the children think of all the things they are thankful for and how to thank God for them.