Tag: Bleeding

Season for Giving, Receiving, and Appreciation

Long-Term Benefit of Human Service

Appreciation motivates a “hunger and thirst” for righteousness that extends the benefits of human service through more people and time. We join this year’s celebration of thanksgiving and use the opportunity to discuss Christ’s teaching on appreciation as a motivator of positive human interaction.


Thanksgiving celebration at Plymouth USA
Thanksgiving celebration at Plymouth USA
wikipedia.org

Thanksgiving is celebrated in different parts of the world at various times. In several places, the celebration is associated with harvest and appreciation for the “fruits of the land.” Also in several places, thanksgiving is celebrated near the end of the calendar year in appreciation of all that was good during the year. For example, in several countries of North America, thanksgiving is celebrated late in the calendar year, usually a few weeks before Christmas; thus beginning a season of giving, receiving, and appreciation that lasts through the remainder of the year. People and institutions exchange gifts and greetings to appreciate each other for being who or what they are and for events of the year that brought their paths to cross.

We join in this year’s celebrations: to express our appreciation to all that interacted with our program one way or the other during the year. We thank God for you and appreciate this opportunity to learn his word and share our understanding through Banking Blessings Ministry. We celebrate this year’s interactions and use the opportunity of the celebration to discuss the value of appreciation in motivating positive human interaction.

Go in peace freed from suffering
Go in peace freed from suffering
Sweet Publishing freebibleimages.org

CHRIST’S TEACHING ON APPRECIATION We examine Christ’s teaching on appreciation based on his interactions with two people he healed from persistent illness. The interactions suggest he wanted to emphasize appreciation as important to the healing, as if the healing was incomplete without it. The interactions occurred in regard to a woman he healed of long-term bleeding and a man that was the only one of ten that returned to thank him for healing them of leprosy. In both cases, he appeared to be telling them and us that their appreciation enabled them to receive full benefits of the healing. However, we know based on the biblical accounts that the physical healing was complete in each case before the recipient stepped forward to show appreciation. Therefore, his interactions with them lead us to understand that each recipient needed more than the physical healing to receive full benefit of his/her interaction with Jesus in the healing incident.

HUNGER FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS His interactions with the two lead us to understand that every human service offers two potential benefits to the recipient:

  1. Surface-value or short-term benefit that arises from the service addressing an immediate need, such as physical healing.
  2. Long-term benefit that arises because the recipient’s appreciation motivates him/her to be good, not only to the provider but also to other people.

If the recipient is good to another person as a result, the other also is motivated to be good to yet others. Thus, an act of goodness whereby a person provides a service to alleviate another person’s need could benefit several more people because the recipient’s appreciation motivates him/her to be good to others that are, in turn, motivated to be good to yet others. Thus, the long-term benefit of human service lies in the potential to motivate an expanding community of people to “hunger and thirst for righteousness” [Matthew 5:6] and earn blessing as Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount. This long-term benefit is more important than the short-term benefit. Christ emphasized its value through personal interactions with the two healing recipients.

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Value of Appreciation – Extending Long Term Benefit of Human Service



Extending Long Term Benefit of Human Service:
Christ’s Teaching on Appreciation

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We examine Christ’s teaching on appreciation based on his interactions with people that he healed. The interactions suggest he wanted to emphasize appreciation as an aspect of the healing process, as if the healing was incomplete without appreciation. We examine accounts regarding a woman he healed of long-term bleeding and a man that was the only one of ten that returned to thank him for healing them of leprosy. In both cases, he appeared to be telling them and us that their appreciation was necessary for them to receive full benefits of the healing. We know the physical healing was complete in each case before the recipient stepped forward to show appreciation. Therefore, his interactions with them lead us to understand that more than the physical healing was needed to complete the healing process.

theglobalgospel.org freebibleimages.org
theglobalgospel.org freebibleimages.org

BENEFITS OF HUMAN SERVICE Examination of these interactions lead us to understand that every human service offers two potential benefits to the recipient: a short-term benefit that arises from the service addressing an immediate need, such as physical healing; and a long-term benefit that arises because appreciation by the recipient motivates him/her to seek to be good to the provider and an expanding human community around the provider. We believe that this long-term benefit is more important than the short-term benefit and is the reason Christ wanted recipients of his favor to show appreciation and congratulated them after they did.

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Value of Testimony



Sharing Appreciation of God:
Christ’s Teaching on Testimony

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We begin a two-part series on appreciation with a discussion of Christ’s teaching on testimony, i.e., sharing appreciation of God. Our understanding is based on his interactions with people he healed: what he instructed them to do or how he received their reaction to the healing. We examine his interactions with a man he freed from demons and a woman he healed of long-term bleeding. We see that he directed both healing recipients to testify about what God had done for them. He gave a direct instruction to the man freed from demons. However, his instruction to the woman healed of long-term bleeding was indirect: he would not stop looking for her until she came forward and testified. We also recall an example on testimony based on Peter’s interactions with his faith family after God released him miraculously from Herod’s prison.

LumoProject.com freebibleimages.org
LumoProject.com freebibleimages.org

INSPIRE OTHERS TO SEEK GOD A testimony inspires others to seek God by sharing with them personal experience that illustrates appreciation for his mercy and power and effectiveness in granting prayers and fulfilling promises. In addition to inspiring others by testifying to one’s personal experience of God, giving testimony also is a way to show appreciation to other people that have shared a person’s concern, either through physical contributions or by helping channel the concern’s to God through prayer. It is important to let such people know that God has granted their prayers and inform them so they would direct subsequent prayers according to need.

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