Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17
Most persistent and loving Lord Jesus, it occurs to me today that I often read this text looking in the rear view mirror, as though I no longer need your medicinal doctor-ly care… as though I used to be a big sinner that needed the great physician to heal me, but no longer. Oh, how I wish that was the whole diagnosis.
Hear me shout for joy and watch me dance with glee… I am thrilled that you’ve already given me the perfect and permanent “health” of justification. I cannot and will never be more justified than I already am in you, Jesus. I’ve been completely healed of my cancerous and condemning guilt. The gospel is my declaration of a clean bill of righteousness-health. In that sense, I am no longer a sick sinner… but only in that sense.
For the more I see of you, Jesus, the more of your beauty I behold in the Scriptures, the more I realize I have congenital heart disease. I am a sick man that needs a mighty and merciful Physician. So I come before you today acknowledging my sin-sickness that you alone can heal.
Jesus, as you have freed me from the guilt of my sin, please heal me of the shame of my sin. I still battle with the disease of shame, and it often paralyzes me. I cannot love others as you love me while thinking about me and my brokenness too much of the time. I’m not asking for greater self-esteem, but for the health of loving well.
Jesus, you have freed me from the penalty of my sin, please heal me of the power of sin at work in my thinking, emotions and choosing. I’m not a victim making excuses, but your beloved crying for greater gospel-health.
Heal my thinking from the ever-present disease of unbelief. Heal my emotions from the disease of self-interest. I want godly anger, not destructive pouting. I want gospel joy, not circumstantial happiness. I want sadness born from a heart of mercy, not melancholy born from simply not getting my way. Heal my choosing from the disease of stubbornness. Jesus, may your will be my bread, and your grace my potion, and your glory my portion. So very Amen, I pray, in your holy and healing name.