Sick people do.
Cody has been sick all week and we ended up in the emergency room last night so that he could get a cat scan to check his lungs. He has pneumonia and is on antibiotics now and on the mend but that’s not the point of this post…
As we’re sitting there I couldn’t help but notice how many different kinds of people were there. People from all walks of life. Different clothes. Different stories. Different struggles. Some had money. Some didn’t. Some were put together. Some clearly weren’t. Some were there because life had hit them hard
Everyone is allowed through the doors of the ER. No one is turned away because of how they look, where they come from or because they’re too sick. Social status doesn’t matter. If you’re sick you come. But healing isn’t unstructured. You can’t demand treatment you don’t need, refuse the doctor’s instructions, disrupt the process, and still expect to get better. It requires trust, honesty, and a willingness to receive care. You don’t get better just by showing up. A hospital is compassionate, but it’s also intentional, open to all, yet guided toward healing.
Everyone there had two things in common.
- They were sick and needed help.
- Nobody was pretending to be okay.
In that moment all I could think about was how this is what church should look like. Not a room full of perfect people who all look alike and “have it all together.” But a room full of broken ones who know they need help.
“When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Mark 2:17 NLT
Somewhere along the way, we started acting like following Jesus means being flawless. Always kind. Always patient. Never messy. Never struggling. And while we should strive to look more like Him every day, Christianity was never about performance. It was about transformation. If we could get it right on our own, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come.
Too often, the church helps maintain that illusion. One day a week we put on our best clothes and our best behavior. We sanitize our language. We hide our sin and our struggles. We nod along like everything’s ok and quietly hope no one notices the cracks. We pretend we’re fine instead of bringing our struggles into the light
But a hospital full of people pretending they’re healthy wouldn’t heal anyone.
And when someone who knows they’re broken finally works up the courage to walk into a church seeking God… they don’t see honesty. they don’t see shared struggle. they don’t see healing in process.
They see, nice clothes, good behavior, polite smiles or maybe judgmental glares, vague testimonies with the messy parts removed. So instead of thinking “These are people like me who found help,” they think “I dont have it together enough to be here just yet.”
And that is the tragedy.
Church was never meant to be a showroom for the healed. It was meant to be a hospital for the sick. A place where people are honest about their sin and their struggles. Where those who have walked with God through something can say, “I’ve been there. Let me help you.”
Following Jesus doesn’t mean the struggle with sin suddenly disappears. It means we stop pretending it isn’t there. It means we bring it into the light and trust Jesus to do the healing we can’t do ourselves. We don’t come to Him because we’re well, we come because we’re sick, and we’re willing to let the Great Physician treat what’s actually wrong. Jesus doesn’t just heal us once and move on. He keeps working on our hearts, exposing what’s broken, softening what’s hardened, and patiently transforming us as we follow Him.
No pretending. No performing.
That’s how discipleship happens. That’s how we counsel one another and help hold each other accountable. That’s how healing spreads.
Grace welcomes everyone in, but healing requires surrender. Following Jesus doesn’t make us perfect, it makes us honest. We still struggle with sin, but instead of hiding it, we bring it to the One who can actually heal us. When the church chooses honesty over performance, it stops being a stage and becomes a hospital, full of broken people from all walks of life being made whole together by Jesus. 💜🤟✝️