Avoiding the Good Physician
Several years ago I received a phone call that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A good friend was calling to tell me that his little girl had just been diagnosed with leukemia. I was stunned. All I could do in that moment was listen and pray with him for God’s intervention. My friend knew that his daughter would need to go through some scary moments and conversations with he and his wife very soon in order to face this diagnosis and embrace treatment. But how does a loving father explain such things to his child? Thankfully she made it through her treatments and is now helping other kids face their diagnoses with the bravery and faith she had!
In a way, you and I are very much like my friend’s little girl when it comes to our spiritual condition. We’re soul-sick and we need an intervention but don’t fully understand why. The treatment is scary, and if we go through with it we will need to embrace some hard truths. Yet in the end, real healing, hope, and life lay before us as we discover that God is our good and capable Physician.
The God of the Bible has some hard truths for us to swallow, but like the doctor who correctly diagnoses his patient and then prescribes the treatment, God has diagnosed the human condition (sin) and prescribed the only treatment that can address the spiritual leukemia that flows within the heart of us all (i.e.—turning to His Son Jesus by faith).
The problem is we’re like little children who are afraid to go the doctor. So we try to avoid our appointment over and over, or we kick and scream as hard and as loud as we can to avoid the intervention we so desperately need. We reject the hard truths of God’s diagnosis through discarding the Bible and what it says, replacing Him with a ‘god’ (a doctor) who will only give us stickers and lollipops because he doesn’t want to ‘upset the children.’ Unfortunately, in America as well as many other parts of the world, God has been reduced to nothing more than a ‘nice person’ who will never tell us difficult things even if those things could save our very souls. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In 1st John 1:8-10 we read:
“8 If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.” (NET)
Jesus referred to himself as our ‘physician’ (Matt. 9:12) and those who need His forgiveness as ‘the sick.’ But we need to be able to come to Him for treatment on His terms. So what about you? Have you come to Jesus acknowledging your spiritual leukemia, or are you afraid of undergoing His treatment? There is no need to be afraid because He promises us in 1st John 5:13:
“I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
So how about stopping to ask the Good Physician to heal your soul-sickness right now by admitting your need for His permanent forgiveness?—He has yet to lose a patient.
