In need of a Savior.

I’m trying to imagine a man who knew no sin.

It’s not easy to even imagine.

To a God who equals lust to adultery, and hatred to murder??? Yeah, It’s a bit hard to imagine someone who was able to meet those standards. Especially while He was accused of wrongdoing and crucified. Especially while He was able to know the hearts and motives of men.
Yeah… It’s hard to imagine.

So when I look though His word and I see Him and I see the meek and mild Man that was still so strong and outspoken – I can’t help but look at myself.

I’m sick at the thoughts of the vile things that go through my heart; anger, disregard, selfishness, even laziness – Even in trying to do good and do well my motives are not always exactly as I’d like them to be. I find myself tamping down desires for respect and praise, hoping someone sees Jesus in me not because they need to see Jesus but because I want people to know I’m “spiritual” and “good”. It’s a hypocrisy that – to me – is a worse sin than drunkenness. At least a drunk is honest about his failures.

Mine remain shrouded in deceiving cloaks of goodness as I try and do good while at the same time seeing and knowing my heart as utterly wicked.

As I see Him more, as I seek Him more, I seem to see myself more as well. I see darker recesses that I didn’t know where there –motives and intents that I was unaware of or simply never evaluated before. I see my attempts at beauty and goodness and cannot help but notice the black spots of sin and self tainting them.

There is no hope for me outside of Him. There is no rescue save Him.

I am in need of a Savior.

This need - this desperate need - did not end when I knelt down and accepted Him into my heart. That was simply a day when I received a glimmer of my need. And now, each day I wake I need a Savior. I’m in need. I’m lost without a Savior. I’m doomed without a Savior.

This is no message of sadness, no message of self-flagellation, this is my message of hope: because I have a Savior. I have what I need. I have a Savior who takes my wayward heart and slowly brings it around to what He wants it to be. I am not a completed work – but I am certainly not what I was before.

My sister-in-law posted on her facebook the first verse to Amazing Grace which most Christians know by heart:
Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost. But now I’m found
Was blind, but now I see.

It’s perhaps those words that spurred me today to write of my own wretchedness that I’ve been battling lately. I am still a wretch. You will likely not see it, God has changed many of my actions, and changed some of my words – but when it comes to my need for a Savior I am still just as much in wretched need of Him today as I was the day He saved me. I just know it better now.

Lord help me Jesus,
I've wasted it,
So help me Jesus,
I know what I am,
But now that I know,
That I needed You so
Help me Jesus,
My souls in Your hand,

~~~
Your name is Jesus
Your name is Jesus
You’re the wonderful, counselor, my friend
You’re what I hold on to
I know that You brought me through
All the days of loss and to the cross, You knew
That I’d need a Savior