Who Needs A Physician?
Everyone gets sick or injured during their lifetime and needs a doctor. Some people do not feel well but will not see a doctor. No one can cure us of an illness if we don’t want to be healed.
Some sick people understand what is causing their health and life problems. Knowing what we need to do and doing it may not be the same thing because we can be stuck in a dilemma. An alcoholic must stop drinking, a person with lung cancer must stop smoking, or someone going deaf must wear hearing aids. Old habits can hold us like handcuffs. We rebel at what we should do and must do to be cured.
Matthew 9:9-13 speaks about who needs a doctor. “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and reclined with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick. Learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
In John 3:16, we hear Jesus say, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
The death of Jesus, God’s Son, is a dark and ugly fact. But when we understand it as a loving sacrifice, made as a remedy for our sins, and followed by his resurrection from the dead, it becomes good news despite all the suffering involved.
This becomes even better news when we realize that Jesus, our Physician, did not ask for someone else to sacrifice for us: he did it himself.
Behind the sacrifice that Jesus made for us is his compassion for those in the dilemma of sin. We all are sinners who need Jesus as our Physician. He loves us. He heals us by forgiving us of all our sins. Sadly, some won’t seek the cure for their sins. The prescription for sins is turning to Jesus in repentance of our sins and receiving God’s forgiveness and love.
Turning to God and having the gift of his forgiveness includes wanting Jesus to be your doctor. As your family doctor, he will help you deal with sin because it will return to you. Sin will keep infecting us as long as we live. In time, if we stick with Jesus as our doctor, he will help us meet our death and appointment in heaven. There we will be in glory and blessed with God.
On a personal note, this is my last column. I started writing this column in 2009 with the title According to Ed. Thank you to my readers. My final word to all I, Raymond Maher (Ray), trust Jesus as my Physician, and I recommend him to you.
