Friday, September 2, 2016
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It's the word you hope you'll never hear when you're in your doctor's office-cancer. Recently, though, there's been a beautiful four-letter word that may go with that ugly word. It's the word "cure". At least they're hoping so. The possible breakthroughs have to do with one of the greatest killers of women-breast cancer. But the discoveries may turn out to open up ways to cure other cancers, too. This entirely new approach to fighting cancer-one that has so far shown promising results in lengthening the lives of terminally ill cancer patients has been described as "attacking cancer at its genetic roots."
The gene is called HER-2, and it produces this protein on the surface of our cells that ultimately helps accelerate that abnormal growth that becomes cancer. Scientists have developed a treatment that attacks this genetic malfunction that causes some cancers. One researcher offers hope to millions who have cancer or may develop cancer when he puts it this way, "If we understand what is broken in the malignant cell, we might be able to fix it." They're calling this one of the hottest areas of cancer research, and it makes sense-stop the cancer by stopping its genetic root.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today bout "The Cancer Breakthrough."
Now you may be one of the blessed people like me who when you hear about cancer, you can say, "Well, not me so far." I wish I could say that about the cancer that infects every single one of us-the deadliest cancer there is. You might call it heart cancer. It's that spiritual cancer in the human heart that causes so much hurt, guilt, shame, and brokenness. The Bible calls it sin, with the middle letter "I". Years ago when Pat Riley took over as coach of the New York Knicks, he said their problem was a disease. I read this in Sports Illustrated. He called it "the disease of me." Actually, we've all got that one.
We were created by God to live life His way. According to the Bible, we've all said, "No. No God's way. My way." That's the root of our deadly spiritual cancer. And it is always terminal. No matter how religious or how nice we are, God makes it clear, "the wages of our sin is death" (Romans 6:23)-that's death as in being eternally cut off from God, from His life and from His love.
This is the spiritual cancer that devastates our self-respect, our family, the people we love-and that's the ones we hurt the most. It takes away our inner peace, and it destroys our eternity. And like mankind's battle against physical cancer, the battle against this disease of me has been going on for a long time.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 7:15. "What I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do." Sound familiar? That's our losing battle against the dark disease in our heart. The writer of these words is desperate for a cure, and he asks, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) Just like us, he's found no cure that can get at the root cause of all the dark things that come out of us.
Then comes the announcement of the breakthrough, as this fellow-sinner asks, "Who will rescue me?" He answers, "Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Jesus has pioneered the cure for this spiritual cancer that has seemed so unstoppable, so incurable. He shed His blood on the cross, absorbed all the sin, all the punishment, and attacked the root causes of the actions and the attitudes we hate-and He broke the power of sin by taking all its punishment.
So many people-maybe even people you know-have opened their lives to Jesus and they have found forgiveness and moral victory that is changing their lives and their homes. It can be yours today if you will tell Jesus you are trusting Him to do that for you.
I want to invite you right where you are to say, "Jesus, I believe when You died on that cross You were paying for my sin. When You walked out of your grave it was to walk into my life. Come on in today." I want to invite you to go to our website at your first opportunity today and find there exactly the path you can travel right now in your heart to be sure you belong to Him and your sins are forgiven-ANewStory.com.
The disease of me is a ravaging spiritual cancer and it's terminal. But the cure is within your reach. The only reason you would go one more day still dying is if you refuse to reach out to Jesus for the cure He paid for with his life.