Fresh Start Devotionals

Why are we Here? I’ve had cancer and I’ve had insurance—cancer was easier. With disease, there are doctors, hospitals, nurses, friends and family to help you fight it. There are people in white coats searching for your cure. People send cards, make phone calls and pray for you. Their purpose is to minister to you. Insurance companies, I am convinced, are in the business to sell policies, not pay claims. It is not that the people there are not caring people, they are somebody’s mother, brother or friend. The people working there are just trying to earn a living like everyone else, I have no personal animosity toward them, but their purpose is to collect premiums, not pay claims. Using their calm voice, they do everything they can to keep their company’s money at headquarters. If it takes a rocket scientist to program a VCR, it, no doubt takes an attorney to understand the terminology in the insurance company’s explanation of benefits. Did you know that a family deductible of $400.00 does not mean that the family has paid the first $400.00 of a bill? No, of course it doesn’t! One member of the family can only pay $200.00 toward the family deductible. Didn’t you know that? If you call your company to tell them you are going into the hospital, it doesn’t mean the visit is precertified. To precertify, you have to call a number on the west coast. To find out if a hospital is on your plan, you call a number on the east coast. If you call the east coast instead of the west, you’re out of luck. Since the left coast doesn’t know what the right coast is doing—you have to pay 30% of the bill, instead of 10%. Heard enough? Got your own stories to tell? I bet you do. The Church is in the business of “saving souls.” Jesus established us and commissioned us to this purpose—we must never lose sight of that goal. We’re not here to build buildings, collect money, or promote a program. We’re here to proclaim the gospel. We use the buildings we build and the money we collect and the program we promote as tools to bring people into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).