It Has To Hurt If It's To Heal

Luke 18:18, 23, And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ...But when [the ruler] heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

The rich young ruler knew that for all he actually possessed, assurance of salvation had escaped him. He probably came to Christ tormented, anguishing in his heart over the state of his soul. And Christ seems to have blown him off (see here for the rest of the story)! But Christ wasn’t being a jerk; far from it, Mark 10:12 claims Jesus loved the man and, therefore, was only exposing the man to his own lostness. The ruler had to recognize his inability to save himself and come in childlike dependence upon Christ. This anguish of soul was the first step to discovering the dependence necessary for salvation.

If only we Christians today weren’t so afraid of “offending” people with the truth of their own sinfulness and lostness we might see more souls come to salvation. God, give us courage to tell those around us the saving word that, like most treatments, must first sting before healing. And let us not be so afraid of unfavorable outcomes that we fail to speak at all; note, that Jesus seems to have "lost" the ruler as a convert, but of course we don't know the rest of the story. At any rate, this man's self-confidence (a common trait especially among Westerners) was shattered and this made for the first step toward salvation.