My daughter has had health problems for the last 22 years. They began her senior year of high school. During the early years of her illness, doctors couldn’t identify what was causing them. Some thought everything was in her head.
Finally, a doctor helped her define reality and do something about it. He diagnosed her with celiac disease which had already caused significant damage because it had been undiagnosed for so long.
He was angry that other doctors had missed it. Once she was on a gluten-free diet, she began to improve. Her breakthrough required clearly defining the problem. That principle is true in many areas of life.
Recently, one of our car tires appeared low on air. I checked it and pumped it up to the proper pressure. I wanted it to be okay. A few weeks later, it was again underinflated.
When I examined the tire more closely, I noticed the shiny head of a nail on the tire’s surface. That is why it was leaking air. The game-changing breakthrough to solve an ongoing issue was identifying the problem.
That is equally true in our spiritual lives. A complicating factor is that we want to be okay just as we are. I wanted the tire to be functional just as it was. It wasn’t, and neither are we.
“Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent” (Luke 5:31–32 NLT).
Jesus can’t help us if we think we are fine just as we are. The Pharisees and the teachers of religious law had nails in their souls but pretended they didn’t.
Like them, our soul sickness, the nail in our soul isn’t going away. We ignore our obvious spiritual bubonic plague symptoms when we think we are righteous. Jesus calls us sinners.
On our best days we are perpetually a day late and a dollar short in our spiritual obligations to God. We are not as good as Jesus, God’s standard of righteousness (Romans 3:23)—not even close.
Pretending to be righteous, we fool no one but ourselves. God sees right through our pretensions, as does everyone who knows us.
We can pretend we have no nail in our spiritual tire, but a holy God hears the hiss and smells the stench. Repentance is the path to healing. See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians. #freediscipleshipresources #freeevangelismresources #freechristianleadershipresources
See free spiritual growth resources for Christians at https://www.christiangrowthresources.com
God has empowered me to write “His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength.” It’s a free evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship eBook. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead more than 3,100 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 8,521 people. I invite you to check it out.
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