Treatment and Prognosis for a Church with constipation or diverticulitis

In the physical situation and medical world, when the problem has been recognized and diagnosed correctly a course of antibiotics will clear up the infection and improvement will be seen within a few days, and given that the problem has been dealt with the sufferer will be able to get back to normal life easily.

For the church  - acknowledging the problem is the first step, and visiting the Master Physician is the second.  For a diagnosis in the medical world a CT scan and a barium enema will confirm the problem, but for the church, and individual Christians, asking God for a spiritual X-ray is a good way of seeing the problem.  “search me O God and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting”.  Psalm 139:24.  This gives the Holy Spirit freedom to search, identify, and highlight the problem and reveal the appropriate course of action needed to solve the problem.  Physically if you’ve had all the tests, and given a bottle of pills to take, they are actually no good at all unless you actually take them, in the spiritual realm the same is true, when God has shown us what we need to do, we need to act on it in order to bring healing, and renewed fellowship with God.  1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”

Of course the church is made up of many parts, but every member, if they take this seriously enough will deal with the individual problem and sin long before it begins to infect the whole body.  Sometimes it takes the united efforts of the body of Christ, to warn, and encourage members to take the medicine. 

In physical situations, serious problems may have to be dealt with by operating to remove the infected, or worse gangrenous part of the gut because the body is no longer able to fight it, and its continued presence could have dire results for the body.

Spiritually this would be a radical step, and it is very rare that church leaders would ever be bold enough to do spiritual surgery, removing people from the church.  Maybe the time has come that some people, who are false teachers, or are causing destruction and damage in the church should be asked to leave the church, for the sake of the health of the local body of Christ.  Maybe though, for the church in the ER an operation is urgently needed if there is to be hope for survival and recovery.

What’s the prognosis?  Actually it is very good, if the problems are indeed dealt with, but in order to prevent future problems there needs to be regular times of discarding waste – confession and prayer for forgiveness and cleansing. Preferably each one of us, needs to daily ask God to search and know our hearts, or better still we should be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit as he convicts us when we have sinned, and will call us to address the issue immediately. 

Physically when this has been a problem, the patient needs to watch their diet a bit, taking in healthy foods which will protect them from being faced with the problem again.  For us spiritually we too need to watch our spiritual diet, and discern what is helpful, healthy and beneficial for our spiritual health.

O Lord, have mercy upon us, that this problem may not be true of us.

Problem No 6: Constipation and/or diverticulitis

If This is the first time you have come to the website, you will find it easier to understand if you read the introduction on the left first, and then the previous blogs before reading this one.

Symptoms and cause  

Probably everyone knows what constipation is, because it is something that everyone experiences from time to time, and usually it is not serious, and given a dose of laxative, or increase in water, fruit and vegetables the problem is solved.   Just imagine, though, if the symptoms are not addressed and ignored?    Chronic constipation! It will produce a blockage in the gut, and waste matter which should have been passed out of the body backs up and begins to produce problems for the body.  Diverticulitis is such a problem.  Over time the little sacs begin to form in the gut, and bits of matter, on the way to be dumped get stuck and trapped in these sacs, so instead of going out of the body, and being rejected they fester and will cause an infection without treatment toxic material enters the blood stream, white cells begin to make antibodies, and the body responds with a fever and a severe stomach ache, which can be debilitating.  Work and things that need to be done, come to a stand- still, as the body tries to fight the infection.  Without treatment, presumably the body would be able to eventually overcome the infection itself – but it would take time, as the body weakened by sickness tries to get back to normal.

In the spiritual realm it is possible to have both, chronic constipation or diverticulitis.  O yes, unfortunately the church overlooks this problem to its peril, but the church is becoming weaker and weaker, because it does not address this issue. 

In the human body the intake of food and drink is a normal part of life – it is taken in, and goes through the digestive process.  All that is of use is withdrawn as it passes along the system, and the body discards and rejects what it doesn’t need.

The church, Christians, take in many things, and just living in the world will result in some things entering the body of Christ which are junk food, or things that have little or no good to the needs of the church, and the Christian life of its members, and needs to be discarded – false teaching, compromised teaching, Syncretism – “ the combining of different, often seemingly contradictory beliefs, while melding practices of various schools of thought.”  These sort of things will give a minimal amount of challenge and discomfort unfortunately they enter the church Sunday by Sunday.  People who have sinned and ignored the prompting of the Holy Spirit to deal with the sin and act as if all is well.  The sin can have a negative effect on the church if it isn’t dealt with – anger, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, and such things as mentioned in  Galatians 5:19.  When these things enter the church, and no confession is made, sin is not dealt with and forgiveness is not sought or recognized as a need, what happens?  Yes, it remains in the body and will begin to infect the rest of the body of Christ.  (Achan’s sin in Joshua 7, meant that the whole of Israel was infected and if the sin had not been dealt with, what would the result have been?) If left untreated the body of Christ will be destroyed.