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If you go to the doctor because you sense that something is wrong, you want your doctor to tell you the truth. A doctor who avoids telling you the truth because it might hurt your feelings doesn’t put you on the road to recovery.
If this is true for medical doctors, isn’t it more important for soul doctors? After all, even the best doctors cannot keep your physical body alive forever, but your soul will live eternally.
If God has given you His Word to share, He says, “I will make My words fire in your mouth” (Jeremiah 5:14). Deliver that painful—but absolutely vital—diagnosis to help people recover from the ravages of their sin.
To soften the words, to water-down the medicine for the sake of people’s feeling or for the desire to be liked by people, is to become a quack, a false prophet. God says of these charlatans, “They dress the wound of My people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11).
Then God says,
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests exercise rule at their own hands and by means of the prophets. And My people love to have it so! But what will you do when the end comes? (Jeremiah 5:31)
The healing word is often a hard word. It might even be considered by those plagued by the ravages of sin to be a harsh and painful word. But the only path to healing is the medicine found in God’s Word—the healing balm that comes from exposing my sin, repenting of my sin, and finally enjoying the healing of God’s forgiveness.
We must always speak the truthful healing word in love because eternity is at stake!
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Craig T. Owens 