Lent book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace
Ocean of Grace (4): SATURDAY
– The Great Physician (p20ff)
What are the biblical qualifications
/ criteria for coming to Christ?
What does this imply about
how we should come to him?
In Mark 2, Jesus is not of
course suggesting that there are some really healthy people who don’t need him.
We are all sick sinners but some people fail to recognise their own disease.
Are there sins of ours about which we might be in denial?
Do we ignore or minimise
symptoms which show that we need treatment?
Have we settled for living
with ailments which really require surgery?
The only thing we can
bring to Jesus is our sin!
If we think we have no
sin, or our sin is not really serious, we’ll never come to Christ in repentance
and faith, just like we might never go to the doctor if we thought we’d be
healthy enough without, or that we could cure ourselves.
Our sickness is not just a
spiritual tummy bug but fatal heart disease. The surgery we need is heart
surgery, not cosmetic surgery. Thankfully, Jesus is in the heart transplant
business! He can make us new and clean and give us new spiritual life. Or to
put it slightly differently, we can and must be born again.
Reflect on the idea of sin
as a sickness or disease. Allow this to help you to see it as unattractive and
harmful. How has sin wounded or bruised you? Ask Jesus to heal you and make you
whole and healthy. Pray for spiritual soundness.
We can only come to Jesus
as hungry and needy beggars. We come knowing we are empty, not claiming to be
full. God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud.
How does it feel to need
charity? Bleeding charity, as C. S. Lewis once called it.
Again, consider the
contrasts in this prayer and how Jesus perfectly meets our needs. Our wants he
supplies. We desperately need him and he is all we really need.
Be encouraged that you can
always come to Jesus as you are! He already knows the worst about you. It is
pointless and unnecessary to put on any pretence with him. As the Collect for
Purity has it, he is Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open and from whom no
secrets are hidden.
Remember that grace is the
undeserved love of God, his kindness and generosity. Love with stoop in it. The
love of a prince for a pauper. GRACE: God’s riches at Christ’s expense. God
loves us in all our unloveliness and his love beautifies us.
It is necessary for us,
sometimes, to take a long hard look at ourselves and our sins. But for every
look within, we ought to have a hundred looks at Him!
Hymn: Rock of Ages Cleft
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