The Miracle Cure

My friend from church is a contractor who offered to send his fence guy, Jarrod, to replace the old and damaged panels in my yard. His only request was that I somehow share the gospel with this man while he worked on the fence. The article you're about to read is what I gave to Jarrod as my response.

Christianity, I told him, is like the discovery of the drug penicillin. Before it was found, nearly 40% of people who caught pneumonia died. After penicillin became widely available, that number dropped to between 5–10%. It was called the "miracle drug" because it saved lives that would otherwise have been lost.

Now, Christianity is like penicillin in that it is completely effective–but with one important difference: while penicillin prevents death in about 90–95% of cases, Christianity offers a 100% guarantee.

Penicillin kills harmful bacteria by stopping them from building strong cell walls. Without those walls, the bacteria collapse and die, allowing the person to recover and live. Christianity cures the disease of sin. Human beings deteriorate physically and spiritually under sin's effects–hatred, envy, pride, disobedience, lust, and selfishness. These things eat away at our souls until death finally claims both body and spirit.

Human attempts at self-healing–being moral, doing good deeds, following rituals–are like taking sugar pills for a deadly infection. They might soothe the symptoms but can't cure the disease.

Thankfully, God has provided a real and permanent cure through Jesus Christ. He absorbed the infection of every sinner by dying on the cross as payment for humanity's moral failures. Then, to prove that sin could wound but not destroy, God raised Jesus from the dead–a divine confirmation that the remedy works.

Antibiotics must enter the body to do their work–usually by injection or pill. In a similar way, forgiveness and spiritual healing enter our souls when we respond to Jesus in faith through repentance and baptism (Acts 2:38). This is not a ritual–it's how we allow God's cure to cleanse us completely.

My fence will eventually rot again, and Jarrod may have to return in ten or fifteen years to replace it. But Jarrod himself can remain spiritually whole and ready for eternal life if he accepts the miracle cure that Jesus offers today.