Nine years ago my Urologist identified a potential problem with my prostate gland. Seven years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had my prostate removed. Two years later I learned they had not gotten it all and I had to undergo radiation to that area. Its now been five years that I am cancer-free! The same Urologist just gave me the good news earlier this week.

I have to do a routine check-up with this Dr. every year to be sure it doesn’t come back. Its like sin in our lives. If I don’t do a regular spiritual check-up that sin which was dealt with on the cross can creep back in again and I can be worse off than before. I’ve had that happen. I can’t trust myself. Jesus said, “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation” (Matthew 12:43-45). We can’t survive empty, we must be filled with something.

Just as I claim deliverance over cancer, so I also claim deliverance over sin. And I need to do routine check-ups. Here’s my prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).