Thoughts to ponder

I'd like to share this morning's devotional reading from the little publication, Beside the Still Waters.

"Cancer, that dreaded word!  It is an incurable disease today as leprosy was in Naaman's day.  Much research is done to understand the cause and find a cure.  Sin is much like physical cancer.  It slowly but certainly eats away at the soul of man.  But human reasoning goes to great lengths to classify sin as simply the result of our weakness or our environment.  God sees everything, but sometimes cancer escapes the most skilled surgeon's eyes.  In fact, cancer may remain hidden until nothing can be done about it.

Cancer cannot be cured, though treatment can cause it to go into remission.  In contrast, sin that is properly dealt with by the blood of Jesus, can be completely cured.  Once cancer starts, it often takes the victim's life.  Likewise, if we continue in sinful  habits, they will lead to spiritual death.  As cancer causes its victim to lose his natural appetite, so sin robs us of our appetite for God and His Word.

Cancer will cause people to suffer things they never imagined before.  Sin will also bring unimagineable bondage and suffering.  Though sin eats silently like cancer, God always has a remedy for it.  The remedy is to repent and find healing through the blood of Jesus.  For cancer victims to be in remission is a cause of joy.  Being healed from sin is reason to be very glad as Naaman was after his leprosy was gone.

Patients are generally careful to follow a physician's advice for treating cancer.  But many people are unwilling to do what Christ requires to be healed from sin.  May we be among those to whom He says, "Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague" (Mark 5:34)"