Honoring God

In Sunday School we are reading The Practice of Godliness", by Jerry Bridges.....this particular passage stood out to me....

"To fail to be thankful to God is a most grievous sin. When Paul recounts the tragic moral downfall of mankind in Romans 1, he begins with the statement, 'although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish heart were darkened.' To glorify God is to acknowledge the majesty and dignity of his person. To thank God is to acknowledge the bountifulness of his hand in providing and caring for us. And when mankind in their pride failed to give God the glory and thanks due him. God gave them up to ever-increasing immorality and wickedness. God's judgement came because man failed to honor him and to thank him. If failure to give thanks is such a grievous sin, then, it behoves us to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness that permeates our entire lives.
One of the most instructive passages on the subject of thankfulness is Luke 17:11-19, the account of the healing of the 10 lepers. Here were ten men in the most pitiful of all human misery. Not only were they afflicted with a terrible and loathsome disease they were outcasts from society because of their disease. They had no one to relieve either their physical or emotional suffering. And then Jesus healed them.
As these men went to show themselves to the priest and thus be restored to their families and friends, only one of them, realizing what had happened, turned back to give thanks to Jesus. Ten men were healed, but only one gave thanks. How prone we are to be like the other nine. We are anxious to receive but too careless to give thanks. We pray for God's intervention in our lives, then congratulate ourselves rather than God for the results. When one of the American lunar missions was in serious trouble some years ago, the American people were asked to pray for the safe return of the astronauts. When they were safely back on earth, credit was given to the technological achievements and skill of the American space industry. No thanks or credit was publicly given to God. This is not unusual. It is the natural tendency of mankind.
In addition to instructing us about human nature, the account of the 10 lepers also instructs us about God. thanking him for blessings we receive is very important to him. Jesus asked, 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?' Jesus was very much aware that only one returned to give him thanks. And God is very much aware today when we fail to thank him for the ordinary as well as the unusual blessings that come to us daily from his hand.

Unfortunately, this stood out to me because it was convicting.