Bible Talk with Sister Deb: What If You Woke Up With Only What You Thanked God For?

"What if you woke up tomorrow with only what you thanked God for today? Would you still have your home, your car, your health, your family? Would you still have your salvation?" 

This striking question frames Sister Deb Osborne's powerful exploration of gratitude through the biblical story of ten lepers healed by Jesus—but only one who returned to give thanks. Drawing from Luke 17:11-19, she unpacks this profound lesson about the gap between receiving blessings and acknowledging their source.

The narrative transports us to an ancient village where ten men suffering from leprosy—social outcasts required to live isolated from society—encounter Jesus. Standing at a distance as law required, they cry out for mercy. Jesus simply instructs them to present themselves to the priests, and as they walk away in obedience, their diseased bodies begin to heal with every step.

Yet despite experiencing this life-transforming miracle, nine continue on their way while only one—a Samaritan foreigner—returns to fall at Jesus' feet in gratitude. Sister Deb powerfully connects this to our own tendency to plead fervently in times of need but forget to praise with equal fervor when prayers are answered.

"It's one thing to be grateful, but it's altogether another to show it," she observes, challenging listeners to recognize how we've all suffered from "spiritual leprosy" until Jesus made us clean. True thankfulness isn't merely a feeling but manifests in worship, acknowledgment, and daily recognition of God's blessings—from salvation to the very breath in our lungs.

The message culminates in a heartfelt reminder that thanksgiving shouldn't be confined to a single holiday but should permeate our everyday lives. Each blessing, whether extraordinary or mundane, deserves acknowledgment. As Sister Deb asks, "How could we not be thankful for everything that He does for us?"

Ready to transform your relationship with gratitude? Listen now and discover whether you're the one who returns to give thanks or one of the nine who receives without acknowledgment.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Bible Talk
• 2:24 What If You Lost What You Don't Thank God For?
• 4:10 Jesus Healing The Ten Lepers
• 11:06 Only One Returned To Give Thanks
• 17:54 The Importance Of Daily Gratitude
• 22:20 Closing Prayer and Farewell

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

I woke up this morning with my mind Stayed on Jesus. I woke up this morning with my mind Stayed on Jesus. I woke up this morning with my mind Stayed on Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Stand on Jesus, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Hey, welcome. You're listening to Bible Talk with Sister Deb Osborne. Bible Talk will be airing on WTUK 105.1 FM every Sunday at 4 pm. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on the 421 Podcast streaming on Apple Spotify. You can go to the website on hor421showbuzzsproutcom. If you'd like to give thanks to the listeners and supporters and always keep us in our prayers as we spread the gospel of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. If you'd like to contact Sister Debbie, you can email her at osborneandeverkaye at gmailcom, and if you'd like to support the show, you can support it through PayPal slash H-O-R-421 or you go through our website at H-O-R-421showbuzzsproutcom. Now I give you your host.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Sister Deb.

Speaker 3: 1:16

Praise the Lord.

Speaker 1: 1:18

Stay.

Speaker 3: 1:19

Yes, I'm trying to sing Good morning, hello, good afternoon, praise the Lord, thank God for being in the studio again today to talk about His Word. You know we should wake up every morning and go to bed every morning and all throughout the day with our mind stayed on Jesus, anyway. So, praise the Lord. Thank you for being here. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you guys for listening. So I want to start today off with you know, they say that they say some people holler well, facebook's bad and this. You know social media is bad. But I'm going to tell you what I have. There's been some things on there that has helped me in my messages, some little things that I've read. It's not all bad, I mean there's. There's statements and little pictures and stuff that people's put on there. That has really helped me out.

Speaker 3: 2:11

So I read a statement here a while back on Facebook. It was just a picture and it had this statement on it. It had a question and I read this question and it hit me, it struck me, so I decided to use this question in my message today. So the question is a hypothetical question. I guess you could call it when you wake up in the morning. If you wake up in the morning with everything that you thank God for today, would you be okay? So think about that. Would you still have? What would you still have? Would you still have your home, your car, your health, your family? Would you still have your salvation? Because I mean people. We should be thanking God every day for our salvation. I try to thank him every single day for it. You know, as soon as I wake up thank you, lord, for waking me up this morning and thank you for my salvation. So saying thank you is is not so hard. You know what I'm saying. Sometimes we just forget, you know, and, uh, you know it's. It's just that we just let the hustle and bustle of the world cause us to forget to say thank you, whether we're thanking our mom or our dad, our sisters, our brothers, our church people, our pastor or even God. You know, sometimes we just don't think about it. I guess I don't know, but anyway.

Speaker 3: 3:40

So what I'm going to talk about today is in Luke 17. Yes, I finally left the book of Mark. So Luke 17, verse 11. And I'm talking about today, jesus healing the 10 lepers right, and so I'm going to go on and read it. It's 11 through 19. I'm going to go on and read the verses and then I'll go back and talk about them, okay?

Speaker 3: 4:04

So Luke 17, 17, verse 11, and the bible says and it came to pass as he went to jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of samaria and galilee and he entered into a certain village. There he met ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off, and they lifted up their voices and said and he fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus, answering, said were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? They are not found. That return to glory, to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him arise, go thy way. Thy faith has made thee whole. So this is kind of you know. We know Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and in all reality, you know he's on his way to the cross really. And so he's traveling, you know, along the border of Samaria and Galilee, and as he travels he enters in this certain village.

Speaker 3: 5:21

Now, the Bible doesn't say what the village is. I googled it and it actually gives you a name. I don't know if it's true or not, but anyway, the Bible doesn't say so, I'm not going to mention it. And it said he met these 10 men who were? They were lepers, and the Bible says you know they were far off. And so Luke 17, 11 through 19, it's a story about lepers. It's about being thankful and it's about not being thankful.

Speaker 3: 5:45

And we know in those days, in Jesus' days, leprosy was common. If you had it, you were thought to be unclean. You were required to stay away from the clean people. So these 10 lepers were distanced themselves. They were distanced from the family, their society. They couldn't be around anybody but their own people. You know, all they had was each other and anyone who came into contact with these men.

Speaker 3: 6:13

These lepers were also considered unclean according to the laws of Moses. And so I read somewhere that they had to stand. I read something on somewhere that I pulled up. It said they had to stand 100 paces. The Bible didn't say that here. And it also said that when someone came close to them, these men had to scream unclean really loud. They had to announce.

Speaker 3: 6:39

So the Old Testament laws required that anyone with leprosy. They had to isolate themselves from their community. That's in Leviticus 13 and Numbers 5 tells you a lot of that, and we also know that lepers often traveled and lived in groups, leper colonies, and that's in 2 Kings talks about that. So Luke tells us that they stood at a distance and they called out to Jesus in a loud voice and of course they're at a distance because it's the law, but these people are desperate. These men are crying. They cry out loud. This may be the only chance they have to see Jesus and they didn't want to miss out. You know he's coming by.

Speaker 3: 7:21

These lepers men had obviously heard about Jesus and his power to heal. He may have even heard how Jesus had healed other lepers, so that would have given them some hope. Of course, now there was only two other lepers that was healed in the Old Testament, which was Miriam, moses' sister, and that's in Numbers 12. And Naaman, the Syrian commander. He was healed in 2 Kings and I have a really good podcast on him. I'll have to pull it out one of these days, but anyway.

Speaker 3: 7:53

So Luke 17 and verse 13 told us that they addressed Jesus as master. See, they know who Jesus is. They know he is the only one who can heal them. They appeal to his compassion. Have mercy on us. They holler, and they've heard of his compassion for others. They didn't try to bargain or negotiate, they didn't try to give Jesus any reasons why they should be healed. They just simply appeal to Jesus and ask for mercy. And we all know they've came to the right person. And what happens next, of course, is what we all want to happen. When we call out to Jesus, their prayers are answered.

Speaker 3: 8:37

Now Jesus didn't answer their prayer right away. He told them to go show themselves to the priest. Back then, only a priest could declare a person healed of leprosy. Only a priest can say that they were clean and fit to reenter society. Now Jesus didn't say they were healed, he just told them to go see the priest and present themselves. There was no special announcements, there was no supernatural touch, no thunder, no lightning. He just told them to present themselves to the priest. And the Bible said, as they went, they were healed, right. So as they started walking away in faith, they were healed On their way. They were healed. They were walking in faith.

Speaker 3: 9:30

I'm sure you know the Bible doesn't tell us how long it took them to discover they were healed, and I'm sure it didn't take them long. But you see, if you look at, when Jesus visited these men, this colony, he's telling them, he's saying you know what these people are loved just as much as anyone else. You know, and when these leper men obeyed Jesus's instructions that he gave them, you know, they didn't really ask for healing, they just asked for mercy, you know. But when they started obeying and they walked away in faith, they got healed. Now, how did the lepers know that, who Jesus was? Well, we don't. There was no communication back then, no phones, no Facebook. How did they know? I mean, I don't know, but that might have an easy answer.

Speaker 3: 10:19

They, you know what Jesus did in Galilee and Judea and Samaria and all the other places. That was things that the world had never seen before. And, of course, we all know that a blaze of miracles followed Jesus everywhere he went and I'm sure news of his ministry spread like wildfire through the territory. You know. I mean, who knows, maybe somebody was walking by and shouted to him across the way, you know, there's a man named Jesus. You know, he's raising people from the dead. He's making the blind to see, the deaf to hear the lame to walk. Somebody could have hollered and said hey, you know, watch for him. You know, you'll know him when he comes by. You'll know him when he comes by because he'll have a group following him.

Speaker 3: 11:03

He has healed leprosy. Now Jesus just didn't say be cleansed or you're healed. No, he said, go see the priest. And they hadn't been cleansed yet. But when they obeyed, it was as they went that they were cleansed. Not when they first saw Jesus or not when they first pled to him and spoke out to him, but on their way, during their obedience, while they were walking along, they were healed. Their fingers would become whole, their toes healed, their horrible sores vanished, and if everybody knows anything about leprosy, you'll know what I'm talking about. Their bodies healed with every single step that they took in their obedience.

Speaker 3: 11:49

Now just imagine, if you will with me, a group of 10 men watching each other walking along this road, being made whole Every step they take. The other can see the other one's healed. You know, and they can, they figure. Well, they can go home again Now. They can go see their wives and their children and they can go to church. You know, they, they.

Speaker 3: 12:10

You know what a celebration they must have been having walking down this road. You can just about put your, put yourself there, but one man, one man stopped to celebrate and he says, hey, you know what? And I paraphrasing of course, it was Jesus who made us whole and we need to go back and thank him, honor him. But see, the other nine had other plans. They didn't have time for that.

Speaker 3: 12:39

And the thing about it is how could they not be grateful? How could they not be grateful for being healed? They were probably grateful, but how could anyone not be healed of leprosy and not be grateful? I'm sure they were filled with gratitude, but not so that they wanted to turn around and go back and thank Jesus, not so that they wanted to stop what they were doing, all their celebrating, and run back to the very one that was the reason for the celebration, up what they were doing, all they're celebrating, and run back to the very one that was the reason for the celebration. You know, not so that they couldn't put their families on hold or their friends on hold or whatever, and go and thank the very old one that made it possible.

Speaker 3: 13:17

You know, friends, it's one thing to be grateful, but it's altogether another to show it, because feeling and doing are not the same. You can feel gratitude, you can feel grateful. But if you don't show it, you know people, you know when a person is truly grateful, it shows. And if you're truly grateful to God for doing the things for you every day that he does for you, every day that he does, it would show in worship, it would show in your service. And the response to the one man he fell down on his face and he glorified God, giving him thanks. He fell down on his face at the feet of Jesus and thanked him for what he'd done. And the thing about it is is he was a Samaritan, he was an outcast, you know he. You know Samaritans and Jews didn't, didn't walk in the same circles back then. I'm sure the only reason he was there is because he was in a leper colony. You know what I'm saying. So, people, he was thankful, you know.

Speaker 3: 14:32

And if you think about it, I read something here a while back and it said that at one point in time all of us have suffered from what I'm going to say is spiritual leprosy. Spiritual leprosy because we were all unclean, we were all sinful. We might not have had the bad skin or the broken out sores or the weeping sores, but we were all at one point in time, we were lepers by nature, if you want to look at it that way, and it was the God of all mercy that made us clean through his son, jesus Christ. And we should all every single one of us, every single day should fall down at his feet in honor and in worship. You know, that's what we were here for. You know to praise and give thanks to God.

Speaker 3: 15:30

Now, if you go on into the story, you know Jesus. After these men, this man comes back. So Jesus is probably thinking well, you know what. Now I'm having a problem with my math today, or what. But where is the other nine? Did I not heal ten? You know where's the other nine? Did I not heal 10? You know where's the other nine? Were they? There are not any found return to give glory to God except this foreigner. That's what the word of God says. And you see, people, this is all of our stories. It's my story, it's your story and it's God's story. He does all these things for us. And do we turn around or do we sit down and do we thank him? I mean, how do you show your thanks to God, you know? How do you give your glory and your thanks to your Redeemer, you know.

Speaker 3: 16:29

But Luke tells us in Luke 17, 15 through 16, that one came back praising God in a loud voice and he threw himself at jesus feet and he thanked him with a loud voice, threw himself at jesus feet. You know, people, do we praise god as loudly when he answers our prayers as we do when we call out to him for help? Good question, right. Do we do that? You know? And Luke tells us that this man who returned to thank God was a Samaritan. And you know, jesus' response, of course, was asking him some questions. Hey, you know, were there not ten? You know where's the other nine? You know, he said, was no one found to return and give praise to god, except this foreigner. And the ironic thing about this is this foreigner, this samaritan, this one leper was not even allowed to worship in the temple. This non-jew was not allowed. But he is the very old one who returned to give praise and thanks to god. He's the only one that was courteous enough to come back and say thank you, a Samaritan that didn't, at one point in time, probably even believe in Jesus, you know. And the story concludes.

Speaker 3: 17:41

The end of the story concludes with Jesus giving him a departing blessing. He said you know, arise and go thy way. Thy faith has made thee whole. You see, people, these men, they had to have faith to be healed. They had to start walking toward the priest. They didn't know if they were going to be healed or not, but Jesus told them to walk. And you see, we can't wait until our problems are over to start walking in faith and thanking Jesus. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: 18:13

God places a demand for faith on us. Plus, he wants us to thank him for everything, for everything that he does and everything that he's going to do. You know, god's going to tell, he says to all of us you know what Love me, and despite this disease, I need you to love me, obey me in spite of being sick, follow me in spite of everything else, praise me in the darkest of nights and the worst of circumstances. And that's what he asked us to do, and he wants us to give him thanks, you know. And one man came back to Jesus and praise God, god. He was thankful and he was loud about it. He wasn't shy at all. He fell on his knees. You know, one man, one healed leper, came back. He was all caught up in the celebration with the rest of them, but he stopped. He reversed his steps, he stopped and he put his family on hold. He put his celebration on hold and he came back to the very old one that helped them to be able to celebrate in the first place.

Speaker 3: 19:16

Friends, I'm saying today, how could we not be thankful for what all jesus has done for us? He healed these men of these horrible disease, so horrible that they couldn't even go be with their family. They, they, they. So bad that they had to scream unclean when someone came close to them. So bad that you could smell their rotting flesh. And and you get the picture right. You get the picture right. You get the picture, friends, I'm telling you today.

Speaker 3: 19:42

Every morning he wakes us up. We have a roof over our head, food on our table, clothes on our potties, our family, our friends, our church family, our health, our livelihood. We are alive. Another day to give God thanks, people. We have our salvation. We have our salvation and we all need to thank God for it.

Speaker 3: 20:11

I mean, how could we not be thankful, how could we not be thankful for everything that he does for us? You know, we don't even have to ask him, he knows what we need. He knows our needs. I think he's already in tomorrow taking care of what needs to be taken care of. How could we not be thankful? How could these other nine men not be thankful? How could they not? He healed them of the most horriblest disease ever and they didn't even stop to think, wow, wow, we need to go thank this man. They didn't even think about it, they didn't. How could we not be thankful for everything that he gives us? Every blessing, every prayer we answer, every breath we take, every step we walk is a God-given gift. How could we not be thankful? And I'm going to ask you I'm going to conclude this with a question. Again, I'm going to ask you if you woke up tomorrow with all that you thank God for today, would you be okay? Think about that, would you be okay?

Speaker 3: 21:31

I hope and pray that somebody heard this and I hope this blesses you as much as it's blessed me to give it to you. People, we need to really be thankful every day. We need to be thankful for everything that we have, everything that he's done and everything that he's going to do, thankful every single day, not just one day a year. Every single day we need to be thankful. I hope this has blessed you again as much as it's blessed me to bring it. I hope somebody heard this and I hope this went to the ears and the hearts that it needed to hear. Anyway, this is Sister Deb with Bible Talk. Thank you very much for listening. God bless everybody and I am going to conclude this with a prayer. God bless all.

Speaker 3: 22:24

Our Father, god in heaven, today we praise you and we honor you and we thank you, thank you, thank you for each and every blessing that you bestowed upon us, each and every prayer that you've answered, each and every opportunity we have to talk about the Word of God and spread the Word of God for people to hear. We praise you this morning. We praise you. We thank you for everything, for the very breath that we breathe and every step we take. We thank you for salvation. Most of all, god, we thank you, lord, for giving your Son to die on the cross so that we could all, all, all, live.

Speaker 3: 22:58

We praise you, we honor you and, lord, I ask you to let this message go, these words go to the ears that need to hear it and the heart that needs to let it sink in, let them understand, lord, everybody within my voice. Let them understand that they need to thank you every single day, not just one day a year. Every single day. I thank you, I praise you and I honor you. I worship you today, god, and I thank you for everything. We ask these and all things. Lord and Jesus, holy, sweet name. We pray Amen and amen. God bless everybody.

Speaker 2: 23:40

Hey, you've been listening to Bible Talk with Sister Deb. If you'd like to contact Sister Deb, you can email her at osbraindevork at gmailcom. That's O-S-B-O-R-N-E-V-E-B-R-A-K at gmailcom Recorded at the 421 studio. For contact information you can email at.

Speaker 1: 24:04

H-O-R-421ministries at gmailcom. Phone numbers 239-849-1502. Stayed on Jesus. It ain't no harm to keep your mind Keeping a. Stayed on Jesus, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hey, I woke up this morning with my mind Staying on Jesus. Oh, I woke up this morning with my mind Staying on Jesus.