Jesus Christ our Great Physician

"I am bound to speak well of my Physician — He treats me with great tenderness, and bids me in due time to expect a perfect cure. I know too much of Him (though I know but little) to doubt either His skill or His promise. It is true, I have suffered sad relapses since I have been under His care. Yet I confess that the fault has not been His — but my own! I am a perverse and unruly patient! When I have brought myself very low — He has still helped me. Blessed be His name — I am yet kept alive only by means of His perfect care.

Though His medicines are all beneficial — they are not all pleasant. Now and then He gives me a pleasant cordial; but I have many severe disorders, in which there is a needs-be for my frequently taking His bitter and unpalatable medicines! We sometimes publish in the newspapers, acknowledgments of cures received. Methinks, if I were to publish my own case, that it would run something like
this:

"I, John Newton, have long labored under a multitude of grievous disorders:

A fever of ungoverned passions…

A cancer of pride…

A frenzy of wild imaginations…

A severe lethargy, and a deadly stroke!

In this deplorable situation, I suffered many things from many physicians, spent every penny I had — yet only grew worse and worse! In this condition, Jesus, the Physician of souls, found me when I sought Him not. He undertook my recovery freely, without money and without price — these are His terms with all His patients! My fever is now abated, my senses are restored, my faculties are enlivened! In a word, I am a new man! And from His ability, His promise, and the experience of what He has already done — I have the fullest assurance that He will infallibly and perfectly heal me — and that I shall live forever as a monument of His power and grace!"