Dear OKCS Family,
How is your amplitude of gratitude? Don’t we have much to be thankful for?
We just finished an entire year of on-campus – in-person learning! Masks haven’t been required but for a couple of weeks! Our fifth through eighth-graders were able to attend Hume Lake Christian Camps after two years of cancelation. We’ve had our Field Days, our Carnival, and our festivals all in person! We have one hundred-ten more students than we did at the time of “two weeks to flatten the curve.” And the Olive Knolls Church has raised nearly $1.8 million in pledges with a million of those dollars to build a new wing for the school!
What else are you grateful for?
You may recall the story in Luke 17:11-19 of the ten lepers who cry out to Jesus for healing.
Jesus instructs these afflicted men to show themselves to the priests – a Levitical requirement to prove to the community that they’re cured. On the way to the Temple, they realize they’ve been healed. One of the ten turns around and runs back to Jesus! He shouts in a loud voice praising God! He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him.
Jesus asks, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?”
We’re astounded at the ingratitude of the nine. But then, in our own life experience, isn’t it
typical for only 10% of any group to truly have a grateful heart?
(That seems about right. Which group do you fall in?)
Jesus says something amazing to this healed and happy man, “Rise and go; your faith has made you whole.”
His faith has made him whole? But weren’t the other nine – the ungrateful ones – weren’t they healed too?
No. Not the way this man was healed. They had received only an outward cleansing of the body; in addition, this man had received an inward cleansing of the soul.
Gratitude and faith are closely linked together. I challenge our entire OKCS Family to go
through life with a soul filled with gratitude. If so, Jesus will always be there to make you whole.
Godspeed,
Mr. Rhodes
