When Charlene first learned that she had a serious blood disease, she thought she would be able to overcome her illness without using the help that was available. She struggled on for a full year, but her condition only grew worse. Finally, she concluded that she would have to turn to the help her doctors had recommended-she would have to have a series of blood transfusions.
The blood for these transfusions comes from a blood bank. The blood bank gets its supply of blood from volunteers, people whose blood is carefully screened to be sure it is healthy blood. Receiving transfusions of healthy blood is the only help medical science has for Charlene’s blood disease. There is no cure, and Charlene was told that without blood transfusions her disease was a death sentence.
Some of us might think it strange that Charlene waited a whole year before turning to the only treatment that could prolong her life. She knew the disease was incurable and eventually would take her life. Why wait? . . . That’s a dangerous way to live. And yet, are you any different? God tells us in the Bible that you and I have an incurable disease. It is the disease of sin, and it also carries a death sentence - an eternal death sentence. “By one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for . . . all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). That’s very plain; we all have it. But there is something we can do about it.
Unlike Charlene’s disease, our disease of sin does have a cure. We have a God who loves each one of us. He knows all about this disease of sin and loves us too much to let it destroy us. He is the only one who could provide a cure, but it cost Him the death of His Son Jesus. Jesus had to die on Calvary’s cross and shed His blood for our cure. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son [cleanses] us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). His blood can wash us clean from all our sin! Each one of us can have that cure right now by coming to Jesus in prayer, admitting that we are helpless to get rid of our sins and accepting the cleansing power of His blood to wash us clean.
Charlene has received seventy-seven blood transfusions and knows she would not be alive now without them. And God is offering you the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus for your sins, but it will do you no good until you receive it. Why wait? That’s a dangerous way to live when you know there is a cure waiting for you.
“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
ML-10/23/2005