To him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God. 

If you went to a doctor and discovered that you had a dangerous but curable illness, would you ignore your diagnosis and presume that you are fine?  It’s hard to imagine yourself just shrugging your shoulders and walking out the door.   Most of us would gladly take our medicine or undergo whatever surgery was necessary so that we could live a long and healthy life.   It would be foolish not to!

As illogical as this sounds, this is the approach we often take in our spiritual lives.   Our spiritual sickness is sin, Jesus is our doctor, and faith and repentance are our remedy.   Through his psalmist, God promises that he will not only forgive us, but he will also show us salvation.   Yet we shy away from it.   Why?

Sometimes it may feel as if God is nagging us to change or give up a bad habit.   When we feel him putting his finger on an area of sin, we might think, “It’s not that big a deal; don’t overblow it, Lord.”   But God isn’t trying to pound us.   Quite the opposite!   He is pleading with us to remove the sin that blocks us from receiving his love.

Sometimes we avoid repentance because we don’t want to admit that we have sinned.   We might feel ashamed or afraid that God won’t love us if we admit our true state.   But God is never surprised by our sin—he sees it far more clearly than we do.   Still, he loves us too much to allow us to stay in that place of brokenness.

Sometimes we’ve ignored the Spirit’s nudges for so long that we don’t even notice them anymore.   We are not even aware of our sins.   That’s why the Spirit sometimes mercifully makes us aware of our sins by “drawing them up” right before our eyes.

Your divine Doctor is reaching out to you all the time.   He is constantly pointing you toward salvation.   So welcome those moments when the you feel a sense of godly guilt or conviction of sin.   Behind every call to repentance lies God’s tender love.   Those moments are special times of grace as we allow Jesus to heal us and set us free.

word among us