Jesus as Savior

 "Do not be afraid.....:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."  --Luke 2:10-11

In Freeing Jesus Diana Butler Bass begins Chapter 3, Savior, with the above children's prayer that her mother would pray with her each night.  As she explores what it means to have your soul saved she notes that Jesus was born a savior and saved people even before he was crucified.  The word "salvation" comes from a word that meant "whole, uninjured, safe, or in good health."  The word "sin" means "miss the mark."  When God created mankind He provided everything we needed.  We lost our innocence when we didn't believe God when He said, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."  This wasn't a threat, it was a consequence.   When Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree and for the first time noticed they were naked they were ashamed and hid from God.

Diana tells us about the two opposing doctrines in the early church.  She writes, "Theologians like Irenaeus wrote about the sacredness of the universe, creation, and human bodies.....Eastern theologians understood creation as good and maintained that the original goodness had been disordered and obscured---but not destroyed---by sin....The Western idea was expressed most fully by Augustine who believed that the entire human race was a "condemned mass," mired in self-gratification, pride, and lust....because Adam's stain was imprinted on each and every human ever born."

She explores further this debate through the centuries, but in the end whichever you believe, we humans have a propensity to miss the mark when it comes to living without sin.  We need HELP loving each other, HELP getting along with people who see the world differently than we do.  And above all, we need HELP in being protected from evil.  Evil is part of the outer world, but it has no place in our inner world where we abide with Christ.

I remember the Lay Me Down To Sleep prayer, as well, because my mother embroidered and framed it.  It was no small thing.  It is 14 inches by 18 inches.  I did not want to scare my grandchildren as Diana and I had been so I keep it in my closet.  I have not been able to part with it because it was made by my mother and was a part of my childhood memories.  

I started this series on Diana's book with my salvation story in The Benefits of Receiving God's Gift, but did not give the details.  I do not recommend instilling fear in children, but it is what brought me to Jesus at a time that I would soon need Him most.  I remember this time vividly.  I was eight years old and attending the Open Door Church where an altar call was made every Sunday.  My Sunday School teacher had been teaching from Revelations (yes, I know.  Revelations!).  So when I heard in church that I could be saved from the End Times and Hell I wanted to go forward......but I was so shy I could not go forward even though I'd raised my hand during the prayer as one who wanted to be saved. This went on every Sunday for over a month. 

One Saturday my mother was washing my hair in the bathtub.  I remember visualizing that Hell was just down the road from us.  I even pictured the house where it was!  Then crying and telling my mother I was afraid of Hell.  So the next day she took my hand during the altar call and walked with me up the aisle.  It was such a relief.  The next Sunday I was baptized in the tank of water behind the pulpit after which the pastor's wife took me to a room where she prayed with me and gave me a tiny Gospel of John, which I still have.  After church we had Sunday dinner at our next door neighbors', Ida and Bart.  I was helping to dry dishes afterwards and almost dropped one of her best plates.  When I managed to catch it before it fell to the floor I truly felt God had saved me from that disaster.  I would have been mortified if I'd broken one of Ida's best plates!  I used that little book two weeks later to witness to my best friend, Valerie, who then accepted Jesus into her heart at her church.  

Within the year my father lost his business because he could not pay the taxes he owed (due to his brother's mishandling of the social security tax requirements).  He turned to alcohol instead of the God he'd accepted into his heart that year and my life spiraled into chaos the next 10 years until I left home.  (I wrote more about this in an earlier post, Jesus as a Friend.)  My father continued to use alcohol to deaden his pain and eventually took his own life after confessing to me that alcohol was no longer his friend.  That was only a few months after he'd given me the New Testament when I was 28 (as I told in the first post, The Benefits of Receiving God's Gifts.)  I could not understand how he could say that alcohol had been his friend after receiving Christ 20 years before.  Wasn't he actually saved then?  Wasn't Jesus his friend?

I finally put that question to rest last year when I heard Andrew Farley point out that we are saved not because of something we did/do but because of what Jesus did.  Once you believe and accept Him into your life, you can't do anything that God can't forgive because you are His now and sealed by the Holy Spirit.  Jesus promised us that He would protect our soul from the evil one.  In my father's case, the evil one used guilt and lies to keep him from accepting God's grace in his troubles.  Alcohol altered his thinking and kept him guilt-ridden.  My father had been too full of pride to accept help.  In fact, I remember him telling me that God helps those who help themselves so he thought it was up to himself to get his life together.  It turns out he was quoting Algernon Sidney, and later Benjamin Franklin popularized it I found out years later.  I think that's why it took me 20 years to discover it was the Holy Spirit in me leading me around obstacles, protecting me.  And I believe because I was still a young child I was more open to this leading even though I didn't know it was the Holy Spirit until I was 28.  My father's soul was saved, but his life was not saved from degradation because he hid from God who loved him no matter what and was there to help him, if he'd just asked.  

Diana explains that atonement is what happened on the cross when Jesus paid the price for our turning away from God.  Atonement is to be made one with Christ when we accept Him as our Savior.  She goes on to explain that Jesus' resurrection "seals the deal three days later, when Jesus destroyed even death, the final and most feared consequence of sin."  She concludes, "Salvation is not really about heaven; it is not an escape.  It is about living beyond fear...."  It's fear that divides us from others and causes us to sin against them and to even hide from God.  Believing in Jesus as Savior is the remedy!

Father, on the night of Jesus' birth the angels declared, "Do not be afraid."  Jesus, my Savior, who lives in me, is my "comfort, my shelter, my tower of refuge and strength" for whom I am ever grateful!

Link to scripture:  Psalm 59:16

Take Action:  My Jesus My Savior