Saved from Myself

In light of my previous post, I want to refer you to a post that Shaun Groves wrote a few weeks ago. Here's an excerpt:

I got saved the way so many of us in America do. I came to Jesus to get out of Hell, to avoid being squashed by demonic forms of transportation and sent to the bad place where I'd be forced to wear drab clothing and chains for all of eternity. I repeated a prayer after a pastor and "invited Jesus into my heart" and asked him to be my "personal Lord and savior" - my personal bodyguard saving me from harm and hell. I had no idea that what I should fear the most, what Jesus saved me from first, was neither trucks nor hell but me.

...what Jesus wants us to understand first is just how messed up we are. Poor in spirit. Jesus saves first and foremost not from external dangers but from internal demise. He saves first not from future torment but from today's depravity.

Only Jesus saves. He saves us from the natural disaster of sin within the human heart. He provides the only hope of healing with one act of sacrifice two thousand years ago outside Jerusalem's gates (Romans 5:12-15). Jesus saves us...from the source of all that has gone wrong and is going wrong everywhere and with everyone: misguided emotions, corrupt minds and selfish wills.

Go read the whole thing!

(HT: Nashville is Talking)