I am a registered nurse and one of the first things we do when we meet a patient is ask a ton of questions. It’s called an assessment.
What brought you here today?
Where is the pain?
How strong is the pain on a scale of 1-10?
How long have you had that pain?
How many hours do you sleep a night?
How many times a day do you have a bowel movement?
What color is it? Consistency?
Do you have trouble urinating?
You get the point.
We ask a bunch of questions first.
Then we see what’s what. We take blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and listen to their heart, lungs and bowel sounds. We have them squeeze our hands and raise their legs.
We take blood work. We send in the doctor to see them. We do CT scans and X rays….whatever it takes to get…..
A diagnosis.
A label.
To heal someone you have to know what it is you’re working with.
A patient presents with increase frequency of urination, feeling hungry all the time, dry mouth, increased thirst, blurry vision, headaches, unexplained weight loss, yeast infections and fatigue….I could THINK we are dealing with diabetes. So I first gathered what they are experiencing.
Then I measure it by something.
I take their blood sugar and it is 450. So I take how they are presenting and combine that with actual facts.
Eventually the doctor orders more tests and he makes the diagnosis “Type 2 Diabetes.”
The patient is relieved. At least I know what it is now!
The patient isn’t mad at us. They don’t say they don’t like labels. They don’t say we are making it up or confused. They are thankful to know what it is so they can feel better.
And then the treatment comes.
The treatment can’t come if you won’t accept the diagnosis.
Another sign of diabetes is slow healing of wounds and sores. Imagine if you won’t accept your “label” how much worse the healing will be? Or will you ever heal? Will you keep denying it and walk around thirsty or will you accept the truth and be healed?
No one taught me to use this same method in evangelism.
But it crossed over quite nicely.
I use this method as I share the gospel. I first do an assessment and see where you at. Then I share the gospel. The measuring stick is the Word of God. They have the choice after that if they want healing.
I was so thankful to find the diagnosis of Progressive Christianity. I felt like the symptoms were there in the assessment I was gathering on a set of beliefs someone had, but didn’t recognize the disease because I wasn’t taught that heresy in Bible school. Once I discovered this whole flow of deception, I now know how to treat it.
But I first made an assessment.
Then measured it by something.
That something…that test I used….is the word of God.
When you study the light, you will know darkness immediately.
When you know health, you see where there is un-health.
The treatment is the Word of God.
Don’t be afraid of labels. They might get you healed.
Some people with Type 2 diabetes, once aware of the disease, can make life-style changes that will actually allow them to stop treatment. However, if they totally disregard this, it could lead to more disease in the Body.
