With nine kids between the two of us, there are plenty of cuts, aches and bruises we tend to throughout the week. So when David’s 6-year-old son was limping around the yard, it was just another day in the Benham house. But this time was slightly different because he didn’t tell anyone he had cut his foot until infection had set in.
He didn’t want the pain of cleaning it out with disinfectant (he’d had plenty of that before), so instead he ignored it and figured it would go away.
What a teachable moment! You should’ve seen the look on his face when we said he could lose parts of his body if infection is left unattended. (We know, that seems a bit rough, but we had to tell him the truth).
We got it cleaned out—and yes it hurt—but he was back up and running in no time.
Today, infection has set in in America—and it’s far worse than just physically in the foot; it’s morally in the heart. And of those with the disinfectant—the people of God—many are refusing to love enough to share the only message that will clean it all out.
It hurts to heal.
The spiritual disinfectant that hurts our moral infection but heals our spiritual direction is the gospel of Jesus. Listen to how simple and clear this is:
“Therefore repent and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).
Everyone wants times of refreshing—but if spiritual leaders don’t apply the disinfectant that hurts (repent of sin and return to God), people won’t experience the message that heals.
This is why we were grieved last week when we read that yet another spiritual “leader” has shelved God’s disinfectant and seems fine with people limping around in spiritual pain and brokenness.
The gospel of Jesus has not changed in over two millennia. So for “leaders” today to exclude the sin of homosexuality in the gospel, and even make it holy in some cases, only reveals that these are not true spiritual messengers of God.
Listen to what God said about people like this:
“I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds” (Jer. 23:21-22).
True leaders from God are willing to hurt to heal—to speak the message that turns people from their evil ways to the only God who can refresh and restore. We all need this message—especially us!
“Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not revealed your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading” (Lam. 2:14).
Today, we have many self-professed spiritual “leaders” who are giving us false and misleading messages from God about sin. Yet nothing has changed about God, and nothing will ever change about His message.
Yet they position themselves as His messengers while refusing to proclaim the His clear message about repenting of sin and returning to Him. They are what the Bible calls false prophets (messengers of God).
“You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?’ When you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ or, ‘Where is the God of justice?'” (Mal. 2:17).
Those who repent and return are the ones who are refreshed from God. Those who refuse are simply walking around with a spiritual infection that can only be healed by Jesus. So let’s be faithful to the true message of the gospel and love others enough to hurt to heal.
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