October 30, 2020

Sharing the Cure for Sin

By Skip Heitzig

I distinctly remember getting cut by some rusty metal when I was a kid and crying like a baby when my mom took me to the hospital to get a tetanus shot. I stood there wailing, "No, no, no," while my mom, who was a nurse and very handy with a needle, deftly gave me the shot and said, "Too late."

But how foolish is it to reject a cure that can fix whatever disease you have? This happens all the time spiritually: Jesus Christ is the cure for what ails humankind, but so many people would rather hold on to their sinful lifestyle than be cured.

The Bible tells us that Jesus "came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:11). They didn't want the cure. What's astonishing is that Jesus began to be rejected even from His childhood. Right off the bat, as soon as He was born, we see Gentiles worshiping Him but His own nation rejecting Him (see Matthew 2:1-11). People were already spitting out the medicine before Jesus could even come of age to deliver it.

We even read that the jealous king Herod, in an attempt to squelch the newborn Messiah, "sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men" (Matthew 2:16).

There was this constant undercurrent of rejection. Why? Satan wanted to destroy this child because it was prophesied that He would grow up to rule the world and ruin Satan's kingdom. From the get-go, hell was stirring up people on earth to reject Jesus Christ, to spit out the cure.

After Jesus and His parents, Mary and Joseph, had lived as fugitives in Egypt until Herod died, we're told that they moved to Nazareth. Matthew told us why: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene'" (2:23).

Now, you can't find this verse anywhere in the Old Testament, which means it possibly referred to a commonly known but unrecorded prophecy. I look at it as a prediction of rejection. Did you know that Nazareth was a term of derision and mockery (see John 1:46)? Many prophets predicted Jesus would be scorned, despised, and rejected—ultimately by being crucified and killed (see Psalm 22:6-7; Isaiah 53:2-3; Zechariah 12:10).

And starting from His infancy, He lived that life of rejection. But He was rejected so you could be accepted. He was forsaken so that you would never have to be. The disciple Nathanael asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). Just salvation. Just eternal life. Just the best thing ever—the cure for what ails humankind.

Out of Nazareth came a child who grew up to die for sin and be raised to new life. And in that same power that raised Jesus from the dead, God chooses to use weak and foolish things like us through which to shine His strength and glory. May He continue to use us for His purposes, to share the spiritual cure He offers to a lost world.

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For more from Skip Heitzig, visit ConnectwithSkip.com, and listen to today's broadcast of Connect with Skip Heitzig at OnePlace.com.