Enjoy and Experience Christ as the Physician: He Came to call Sinners, not Righteous

As believers in Christ, we can experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician; He did not come as a Judge to condemn us according to righteousness but as a Physician, as our dear Healer, to heal us according to mercy and grace, making us His kingdom people today.

Lord Jesus, we want to know, enjoy, and experience Christ as the Physician. We open to You. Save us from thinking we are not sick and we have no need. May we realise that we are sick, we need a Healer, and we need You as our Physician! Amen, Lord, come in and heal us in our mind, emotion, and will! Heal us in our body and also in our spirit! Amen!

How wonderful it is to know that the Lord Jesus is our Physician for us to enjoy and experience today. The Lord Jesus did not come as a great Teacher to teach us or as a great Miracle-worker to impress us with what God can do for us.

He came in a personal, intimate, and subjective way, and He came outside of any religion.

In the Lord’s days, the religion was the Jewish religion, and the Lord had nothing to do with it. He stayed away from religion.

When He was born, He was not born in Jerusalem, nor was He raised up there; rather, He was born in Bethlehem, and He was raised in Nazareth in Galilee.

He came from a despised region of the country, where there was a mixture of the Gentiles and the Jews.

The one who introduced Him, John the Baptist, was also unconventional and non-religious; though he was born into a priestly family, he followed God’s calling to go into the wilderness.

He introduced Christ to others, he recommended Christ, and he also baptised Christ.

And the Lord’s followers were not the top priests and scribes; they were Galilean fishermen, those who were mending their nets and casting them in the sea.

Today we as believers in Christ are like this; we’re not the top people this world has to offer, we are not religious nor are we born in religion, and we are not Jews but most of us are Gentiles.

Yet the Lord Jesus came to us to be known to us in an intimate and personal way, and we can touch Him, enjoy Him, and experience Him in spirit today.

Thank the Lord for His coming! And thank Him that we can enjoy and experience Him in our Christian life today!

May we stay away from any religious tradition, and may we never allow our contact with the Lord and our pursuit of Christ become something religious or traditional.

May we have a fresh, intimate, personal, and spiritual relationship with the Lord!

We may Experience and Enjoy Christ as the Physician who came to Heal us, not Judge us

In Matthew 9:10-13, we see that the Lord Jesus introduces Himself as a Physician. This portion indicates that we may experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician.

The Pharisees asked His disciples why the Lord ate with sinners and tax collectors; the Lord Jesus took this opportunity to reveal Himself as the Physician.

We may have been troubled or upset, and we may have taught them something, but the Lord Jesus takes every opportunity to unveil a lovely aspect of His being.

He came not for those who are well, but for those who are sick; those who are strong have no need of a physician but those who are ill.

The Lord indicated that the tax collectors and sinners who liked to be with Him were patients, sick ones, and that He was to them not a Judge but a Physician, a healer.

The Lord Jesus in His first coming did not come as a Judge to judge us according to righteousness; He came as a Physician to heal us according to mercy and grace.

We, as the kingdom people, were those who were lepers (Matt. 8:2-4), paralytics (vv. 5-13; 9:2-8), the fever-ridden (8:14-15), the demon-possessed (vv. 16, 28-32), those ill with all kinds of diseases (v. 16), despised tax collectors and sinners (9:9-11).

If He were to visit us according to His righteousness as a judge, none of us would be welcomed but rather, all would have been condemned and rejected.

None of us in ourselves are qualified, selected, and called to be the kingdom people of the heavenly kingdom of Christ if He had come as a Judge.

But thank the Lord for coming to minister as Physician; He came to heal us, recover us, enliven us, and save us so that we may be reconstituted to be His new and heavenly citizens! Thank the Lord!

We are not the strong ones but the weak ones, even the sick ones, and we need the Lord as our Physician. We may experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician today.

First, we experience Him, and this experience brings us into the enjoyment.

We may not realise how sick we are, how many problems we have, and how many illnesses we suffer with; so the Lord comes in as the Physician to heal us, recover us, and enliven us.

As He touches us and heals us, we enjoy Him even more. May we experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician in our daily life. May we open to Him and allow Him to minister to us as a Physician.

May we not believe the devil’s lie that God hates us when we sin or wants to punish us for our mistakes; may we believe God’s word, which says that Christ came as a Physician.

In calling people to follow Him for the kingdom, the Lord Jesus ministered as a Physician, not a judge. If He had come as a Judge, we all would have been finished; we have no chance before the Lord as the righteous Judge.

But thank the Lord, He came to us as a Physician!

A judge judges according to righteousness, but a physician ministers and heals according to mercy and grace. A physician never judges; rather, he has mercy and grace to heal us of our illnesses.

Our God is a God of mercy; in His mercy, He delights to heal us from whatever ailment, whatever illness, and whatever injury we have experienced.

May we not be like the self-righteous Pharisees who thought they had no need of a Physician, but rather, may we open to the Lord and come to Him to experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician in our daily life.

As He heals us and enlivens us, as we experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician, we become His kingdom people to express God corporately on earth and bring in His rule on earth.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to us not as a Judge but as the Physician. We open to You. We want to experience and enjoy You as our Physician today. Oh Lord, we need You as our Physician. We need Your healing and Your enlivening. Heal us, Lord, recover us, enliven us, and save us so that we may be the heavenly citizens of Your kingdom. We just come to You as we are. We do not try to improve ourselves to heal ourselves. Oh Lord, You are our Physician. Thank You for coming not to judge us according to righteousness but to heal us according to mercy and grace. Thank You for Your mercy and grace. Hallelujah, our God is a God of mercy! Praise the Lord, our God is a God of grace! We open to Your healing, recovering, enlivening, and saving so that we may be the new and heavenly citizens of the kingdom of God on earth! Amen, Lord, may we experience and enjoy Christ today as our Physician in many ways! We do not consider we are strong; we are ill, we are weak, and we are sick, and we need You as our Physician! Amen!

Christ came to Call the Sinners, not the Righteous; we’re the Sinners, those Ill, who need Christ as the Physician!

In the Gospel of Matthew, we clearly see how Christ is versus religion; also, we see the opposition and persecution of religion. The Jewish religion was based on the word given by God, but many took this word and made it into a religion, and this religion is versus Christ.

As the Lord was carrying out His earthly ministry, the religious people in His time always opposed Him, criticised Him, and persecuted Him.

The Lord was having a meal, and many sinners and tax collectors were pleased to be there, so the Pharisees asked His disciples why does the Lord eat with sinners and tax collectors.

They thought they were better than doing such a thing. So the Lord took this opportunity to show them that He is the Physician.

He told them in Matthew 9:13, Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Those whom the Lord came to call were sinners, not the righteous. Actually, according to Romans 3:10, there is none righteous, not even one; all those who think they are righteous are self-righteous, as the Pharisees were (Luke 18:9).

The Lord Jesus didn’t come to call the self-righteous but the sinners. Those who think they are righteous think they know everything about God; so the Lord told them to go and learn what it means to be merciful.

What God desires is not more sacrifice from our side; what He wants is mercy. He wants to show us mercy, and He wants us to show mercy in love to others (Micah 6:6-8; Mark 12:33).

He has mercy on us, and He is the Physician to heal us, enliven us, and restore us to make us the heavenly citizens of the kingdom of God.

May we not be self-righteous like the Pharisees; may we humble ourselves before the Lord and realise that we are the weak ones, the sick ones, the ones in need of a Saviour and a Physician.

May we not rely on our vast knowledge of the Scriptures and may we not think that we know the Bible so well that we cannot be with sinners nor are we in need of the Lord’s healing.

Oh Lord! May the Lord shine on us. May He expose the true situation of our inward being. May we realise how much we need the Lord.

As believers in Christ, we need the Lord’s mercy day by day, even all the time. He came to show us mercy, and He came to be our Physician.

The Lord Jesus came to minister as a Physician to heal, recover, enliven, and save us, so that we may be healed and be reconstituted to be His new and heavenly citizens!

In this way, He can establish His heavenly kingdom on this corrupted earth.

However, if we are self-righteous as the Pharisees were, if we keep the religious traditions and know the Bible in our mind but not live Christ outwardly, we may think we do not need the Lord.

Blessed are those who do not think that they are righteous but who recognise that they are sinful.

Blessed are we when we humble ourselves and admit that we are sinful and sick, in need of the Lord’s healing!

As we read the Bible prayerfully and contact the Lord throughout the day, we are touched by the Lord of our many weaknesses, sicknesses, ailments, and illnesses.

We realise we cannot heal ourselves. If we try to heal ourselves, we only become self-righteous as a cover for our real sicknesses. So we come to the Lord. We come to Him as we are.

We realise we are not righteous, nor can we be righteous in ourselves. What a blessed people we are if we see that we are sinful and sick, in need of the Lord as our Physician!

As a Physician, the Lord heals us. In the Gospels, the matter of healing is repeated again and again; we need Christ to be our Healer, our Physician.

May the Lord deliver us from being self-righteous and may we come to Him as we are, experience and enjoy Christ as the Physician, and allow Him to make us His heavenly citizens.

The citizens of the Lord’s heavenly kingdom are not self-righteous people; they are the sick ones who were healed by the Lord and who remain open to the Lord’s healing daily.

They are not people who think they are righteous so they don’t need the Lord anymore; rather, they enjoy God’s mercy and they also show mercy to others, for they have been shown mercy.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming in mercy and grace to minister to us as a Physician. We open to You, Lord. We need You. Save us from being self-righteous. May we never consider that we are so righteous that we don’t need the Lord’s healing anymore. Oh Lord, You came to call the sinners, not the righteous. We are the sinners and the sick ones; we open to You! We want to enjoy Your ministering as the Physician so that You may heal us, recover us, enliven us and save us. Save us from primarily trying to do things for God or give things to God; may we first open to the Lord and allow Him as the Physician to heal us and restore us. May we learn what it means that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. We love You, our lovely Physician! We open to Your healing today. Establish Your kingdom in us and with us. May Your kingdom come in us and through us. Amen, Lord, we love You and we open to You! Heal us from all our ailments, illnesses, and injuries!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ray Mulligan on this topic, and portions from, Life study of Matthew, msg. 27, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-inclusive Christ as Revealed in Matthew (2025 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 2, Christ as the Physician and the Bridegroom – day 2.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – The Great Physician now is near, / The sympathizing Jesus; / He speaks the drooping heart to cheer, / Oh, hear the voice of Jesus! (Hymns #980 stanza 1)
  – Thou the Shepherd and Physician, / Thou hast healed our sick condition; / Comfort, guide, protect—Thy mission; / Thou dost care for us. (Hymns #78 stanza 10)
  – Have you found the great Physician, / Jesus Christ of Galilee? / He who bore our pain and sorrow, / On the shameful, cruel tree? / Still He heals the sick and suff’ring, / As before He went away; / For His word most plainly tells us, / “He is just the same today.” (Hymns #758 stanza 1)