Perspective
The Perfect Cure
We live in a time and within a culture that questions and even denies concrete truths. We are told that truth depends on one’s perspective, so what may be truth to one person may not be to another. Our beliefs are personal, society says, and should not be used as an influence on others. Although most of those reading this article probably do not ascribe to this worldview, we still may be influenced by it. We may feel uncomfortable sharing our faith, feeling as though it is somehow wrong or disrespectful to impose our views on someone else.
Prayer has been taken out of schools. The Ten Commandments have been taken out of courtrooms. “One nation under God” has been left unsaid in the pledged allegiance to our country. And our society does this to keep from stepping on toes because there are many types of prayer and many kinds of gods.
In medicine we recognize that there are few absolutes. Every laboratory test has false positives and false negatives. False positives confirm a disease when the patient does not have the disease, and false positives are tests that do not reveal the patient’s disease. Doctors rely on the patient’s symptoms and the physical exam to point them toward a diagnosis. But medicine is far from an exact science. There are many gray areas. And once a diagnosis is made, the treatment is most often less than perfect. Even in the most treatable of diseases, there is a failure rate. And physicians, suffering from human imperfection, also make mistakes.
The only absolute truth in medicine is that man is ultimately mortal. Any illness or disease that is cured does not change the reality that eventually the patient will die.
Man suffers from a mortal disease called sin. Sin has infected every person and it is 100 percent fatal. This spiritual disease is something our culture tries to avoid acknowledging, not wanting to face its reality. But this is an undisputable fact.
The wonderful news is that this disease has a cure! And unlike the treatments for physical diseases, the cure for sin is 100 percent effective. The first book of John spells this out in concrete language: God has given us the cure. There is only one cure. The cure is Jesus Christ. If we have Jesus Christ we have eternal life; if we do not have Christ we do not have life.
As Christians, we are called to live a life of gratitude for our salvation and to be practitioners for the Lord. We have accepted the Cure He has given us, and we must tell others about how the Cure has conquered our sin. Some may shut us out, saying there are ways to buy it or earn it. But our duty is to offer them a release from sin’s grasp, to lead them to faith. By grace, God has given us this Cure by no means of our own deeds. Only by His love for us does Christ continue to pour out His Cure on us.
We all have a license to practice “Eternal Medicine.” We need to give our friends and neighbors healthy doses of the treatment for sin - the Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
We can’t allow our culture to inhibit us from acting on the opportunities to share the good news of the perfect Cure!
Dr. Wrede Vogel