Spiritual Illness

Imagine that you are in a doctor's office, waiting to hear the news. The doctor walks in with a dark look on his face. The news is terrible to bear: you have a terrible illness. The illness can be cured, but only if you change your lifestyle and begin a regiment of medicine and exercise.

What will you do?

Chances are that you will change your lifestyle and begin that regiment of medicine and exercise. After all, if you do not, you will lose your life!

But what if, in this situation, someone refused to change? What if that person denied that he or she were ill and refused to believe that they needed treatment? What if the symptoms and problems associated with the illness were plain to see, and the person still denied that there was a problem? What would you think of such a person? More likely than not, you would think that such a person was going to suffer greatly and lose their life unnecessarily-- all because they would not consider the fact that they were sick.

Such things are easy to think about and to understand in terms of physical illness. The same is true, moreover, regarding spiritual matters and spiritual illness. Jesus says the following in Matthew 9:12-13:

But when he heard it, he said, "They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what this meaneth,' I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

We can learn from the Bible what spiritual sickness is: sin. Sin separates us from our God (Isaiah 59:1), and sin leads us to death (Romans 6:23). All of us have sinned, and therefore all of us are in danger of dying spiritually (Romans 3:23).

Consider yourself, then, in the spiritual Doctor's office, and recognize that you have now heard that you have the terrible illness of sin. While it may sound grim, you can be delivered from your sin through the blood of Jesus Christ, and obtain eternal life by changing your life and no longer serving sin (Romans 6:20-23), and being in association with fellow Christians (Hebrews 3:12-14, Hebrews 10:24-25).

The question now must be: will you accept this reality, or will you deny that you have the sickness and believe that you are healthy? As Jesus said, He has come to call the sinners, not the "righteous". Do not be deceived: not one person is truly righteous save Jesus the Christ. Jesus is not saying that there are righteous people inasmuch as He is saying that there are people who believe that they are righteous when they really are not. Just because you have a comfortable life and evil has not befallen you does not mean that you are healthy (Luke 12:16-21). Just because you go to a church and think that you have become righteous does not mean that you are healthy (Matthew 7:21-23). Only when you recognize that you are sick and in need of the Great Physician can you become spiritually well. Come to Him today!

Ethan R. Longhenry
evangelist@norwalkchurch.org

Consider God's Word

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life, (Romans 5:6-10 ESV).

God's message in Romans 5 is wonderful and marvelous, but is only applicable if you are in Christ. If you would like to know more, please contact us, and we will do all we can to help you!

The church of Christ in Norwalk, Ohio

Thank you for reading the electronic version of our bulletin, Good News for Norwalk. If you live in Norwalk or happen to be traveling in the Norwalk area, we would certainly love to have you visit one of our assemblies!

Our location:

386 North Edgewood Drive (just off US 250 just north of Norwalk's city limits)
Norwalk, Ohio 44857

Our assemblies:

Sunday morning assembly: 10:30am
Sunday evening assembly: 6:00pm

Our Bible studies:

Sunday morning Bible study: 9:30am
Wednesday evening Bible study: 7:00pm

For More Information

If you have any questions or comments about anything you have read here, or desire more information, please contact our evangelist, Ethan Longhenry, at evangelist@norwalkchurch.org.

Please click here to return to the 2006 archive of Good News for Norwalk, or click here to return to the main page of Good News for Norwalk. Thanks!