September 14: Sepsis Awareness Month
I knew that something was wrong when I awoke to find all my children and my wife gathered around my hospital bed. Unbeknownst to me, the doctor had told my wife to invite the kids to come and say goodbye. The chances were very good that I wasn’t going to make it. The problem? I had pneumonia, and the infection had gone septic. I was fighting off septicemia (an infection in the blood stream that causes organ failure and potentially death).
Before that day, I had heard of sepsis, but had no idea what the symptoms were or what to look for. If only I had celebrated Sepsis Awareness Month the year before! September has been designated as Sepsis Awareness Month by Sepsis Alliance since 2011. Every September since, the organization has invited healthcare professionals and individuals in all areas of medicine, as well as businesses and organizations, to help raise awareness of sepsis and save lives. One in ten deaths associated with childbirth and pregnancy are because of maternal sepsis. It is believed that sepsis leads to six million deaths per year worldwide.
Who knew? You would think that something that deadly would be common knowledge. But people are grossly uninformed, and millions pay the price each year. As stunning as those numbers are, there is another infection that is much more lethal and infects every person on the planet. It is called “sin.” The symptoms are obvious. The illness is progressive in nature, and the fatality rate is 100%.
We live in a world that not only rejects these undeniable facts, but worse, our world actively campaigns to convince us all that we are not sick. In fact, to suggest that we are sick is viewed as unkind, judgmental and cruel.
One of my seminary professors once remarked that every worldview, bred of any culture, religion or people group, falls into one of two categories. Either, we believe that mankind is basically good with a propensity for evil, or we believe that mankind is basically evil with a propensity to do good. Which is true for you? The entire Christian worldview stands and falls here. We believe the latter. God’s word is clear. We are desperately wicked by nature. All of us.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we cannot, we must not, fudge on this truth. We are all born with inclinations and desires to reject God, run from Him, and do everything in our power to cozy up to anything or anyone that opposed Him. The solution to every problem, the antidote for every social ill, is a changed heart—change from a dead and willfully disobedient heart, to one that humbly seeks to submit to the will of God. Only one thing can affect that kind of cure: THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. Please, friend. Don’t waver on this. Fight injustices and seek to right wrongs but remember that the only cure for our sin-sick souls is the love of God in Jesus Christ. The good news of the gospel is only truly good for those who know just how truly bad the bad news is. As valuable as a Sepsis Awareness Month might be, what we really need is a Sin Awareness Life.
To Read: Romans 3:10-23; 6:23; Jeremiah 17:9; Psalm 51:5; Matthew 7:13-14
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