Oh how He Saves . . .

 

In writing about God’s saving power yesterday, I felt this topic is too important to leave and go on to the next description of Him in my list. Today I’m thinking about how God SAVES His people.

The OT Hebrew word sounds like both Jehovah and Jesus only with different spelling. It describes physical rescue but also spiritual deliverance, not a prominent topic in the OT but implies a salvation beyond here and now. One of the first times this word is used is when David is about to go against Goliath, the giant who held the army of Israel in great fear. David is just a boy, but before he puts a stone in his sling, he says in 1 Samuel 17:45–47:

“You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

This dramatic story illustrates the power of God is not always what people expect. I was saved while reading a godless book on reincarnation. My husband was saved listening to a sermon about OT angels. One son was influenced to turn to Christ after sitting at my feet playing with toy cars at a ladies Bible study. I heard of a young man who was saved when trapped in the truck he was driving; it went off the road and burst into flames with the radio on and a preacher explaining what he had to do. God’s saving power is astonishing.

We tend to think God will save ‘good’ people who are worthy, but the psalmists knew better:

Psalm 34:18. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Psalm 37:40. “The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.”

Psalm 72:13. “He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.”

The NT says God’s saving power is not granted to the best of us and even mocks our notions about who should be saved. 1 Corinthians 1:20–29 says it:

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

Once saved, lives changed and given the righteousness of Christ, we could think we have it made, but Colossians 2:6 says, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” We receive Christ in helplessness, knowing we are insufficient and cannot save ourselves. We receive Him because He came to us and drew us close by grace, not by any merit of our own. And that is how we are to live as Christians — with that same sense of helplessness and insufficiency, knowing we ‘cannot do this’ apart from Jesus. Every day and for every act of loving obedience, the power of Jesus Christ is needed and necessary. Without Him, I can do nothing. 

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. This is how He saves, through my weakness and reliance on Him, not through anything I am or can do, or through self-confidence or any other me-focus. Only Jesus saves. I cannot. My efforts will not help me enter His kingdom, belong to His family, or have His eternal life. This is why He calls me to keep looking to Him, the Author and Finisher of my faith, the One who saves to the uttermost.