A Wonderful Savior

Humans tend to be very ungrateful creatures; or perhaps just so unspiritual and self-centered that they will look for any excuse to reject God and live the kind of life they wish to live. A person can be showered with innumerable blessings from God for years, but then something bad happens, they blame God, and turn their back on Him. It’s an inexcusable tragedy because we have a wonderful Savior Whom, if we’d only take the time to appreciate as we ought, we would serve and honor as we ought.

“And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written,” (John 21:25). Indeed, if I were going to try to list all the reasons Jesus is a wonderful Savior, this article would be never ending. Let me note just a few and then add a personal touch.

1. Jesus is a wonderful Savior because, through His blood, we have the opportunity for forgiveness of sins. “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,” (Rev. 1:5). This is, by far, the greatest blessing we have. If we had NO other blessings from Him, this would be sufficient. Because it is the blood of Christ that leads to the second reason I’d like to mention…

2. Jesus is a wonderful Savior because He gives us a promise of eternal life. “And this is the promise that He has promised us--eternal life,” (I John 2:25). Eternal life. This earthly existence can have its sorrows, but most of us aren’t terribly interested in giving it up any time soon. But we all will some day—“it is appointed unto men once to die,” (Hebrews 9:27). But…the life that Jesus promises the faithful will never end. And there will be no sorrow, tears, or pain to accompany it (Rev. 21:4).

3. Jesus is a wonderful Savior because He is always there. “For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” (Hebrews 13:5). This can, indeed, be one of the most sublime, comforting promises in all the Bible. Humans are frail, and quite often, will let us down. The Lord is always there; He never forsakes us. Unfortunately, too often we ignore Him and pay Him no mind. But He’s always there, regardless. And when we do return to Him, He won’t turn His back on us, as we have on Him so many, many times.

4. In like manner, Jesus is a wonderful Savior because He is willing to help share the burdens of life. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” (Matthew 11:28-30). “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you,” (I Peter 5:7). Wrongly, some interpret those two verses to mean that all we have to do is tell Jesus about our troubles and they’ll go away instantly and miraculously. That isn’t the way it works. It simply means we have someone, always, to go to, to talk to, Who will understand. Again, He is ever available when we need Him.

There are many, many other reasons Jesus is a wonderful Savior. But because He is, we ought to always honor, praise, and glorify Him—for Who He is, what He is, and what He has done for us and promised us. There’s simply no excuse for failing to submit to Him and serve Him with all of our being.

I’m not a believer in “personal testimony” for salvation, but I do believe our earthly experiences can comfort and aid one another, and indeed, we should use such experiences for those reasons. So let me get a little personal here and tell you a little about myself. Many of the readers know, and some don’t, that I had cancer back in the year 2000. As far as cancer goes, it wasn’t terribly serious, but cancer is always horribly frightening, and it was surely a scare. The Lord pulled me through that, but one of the offshoots of the chemo-therapy treatment I had was horrible, hideous mental depression which I’ve suffered with ever since. I’d been plagued somewhat with melancholia for many years before, and the doctors concluded, after the chemo, that something in the medicine (specifically Prednizone) simply pushed me over the edge into full-fledged bi-polar 2 depression. Now, to define terms a moment. There are basically two types of “bi-polar” disorders—bi-polar 1 and bi-polar 2. People with bi-polar 1 bounce up and down; they can have very high highs, and then very low lows. Bi-polar 2 people never have the highs, only the lows. If I can illustrate it numerically, it would be like this. On a scale of zero to 100, if 100 is floating above heaven and zero is the deepest pit of hell, with 50 being basic neutrality, bi-polar 1 people can go from zero to 100. Bi-polar 2 people rarely hit 50. I’m bi-polar 2. Folks, I’m not looking for any sympathy or pity—anybody who knows the first thing about me knows I’m not—but I have absolutely no idea what the human emotion of “happiness” feels like. Oh, I can laugh and cut up occasionally, but that is nowhere near my normal state of mind and that’s not what “happiness” is, anyway.

Since that chemo treatment, I’ve had almost constant depression. I take medication and I suppose it mitigates the pain somewhat, but not always. I spent 10 days in the psycho ward of a mental hospital in 2002, and there have been very, very few days over the years when I haven’t had anxiety or some depressive low—for no reason at all except the chemical imbalance in my mind for which, apparently, there is no cure. And for the last 10 weeks or so, I have had an absolutely horrible spell—much worse than normal. Every…single…day, the whole day, I’ve been dealing with this stuff. Sometimes at night it gets a little better, but there are times when I’m literally doubled up in pain, crying out in agony, tears streaming down my cheeks. Now that’s the extreme, but there’s nearly always some kind of pain. I have to force myself, above the pain, to write these articles for my blog. It can be simply excruciating. Believe me, the only thing I look forward to during the day is going to sleep at night because that’s the only respite I ever get. There have been many, many nights over the last 10 years when I prayed to God I wouldn’t wake up the next morning because I knew how painful the day would be. And I’ll probably pray that tonight. I’d be a whole lot better off.

Now, why am I detailing all of this? Again, I am NOT looking for sympathy, and don’t want any; there are a whole lot of people on this earth in a whole lot worse shape than I, and I thank the Lord that my condition is not worse than it is. My point here is—and I’m going to boast just a moment for a reason I shall shortly explain—but during all of this time, the cancer and the hideous depression, I have never once said anything to God but “blessed be the name of the Lord.” I’ve never cursed Him, blamed him, or denounced Him. Now, I haven’t always lived as closely to Him as I should; no way. But I won’t curse Him, either. The cancer and depression came for some reason of His—to strengthen me, punish me, prepare me, teach me—some of that or probably a lot of all of it. I don’t know why and I just wrote seven articles on this blog explaining that we cannot know the mind or reasons why God does what He does. But I do know this. I have a wonderful Savior Who has promised to forgive my sins, Who offers me eternal life, Who has never left me or forsaken me, and Who I can always go to when I need Him. And, while again, I haven’t been nearly as faithful to Him as I should have been through all of this, I won’t deny Him. Because what He has done FOR me far, far, far exceeds what He has ever done TO me; and even the latter has only been for my good. And if I must live with this depression for the rest of my life, which, at the moment, seems very possible, then so be it: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” (Romans 8:18). What’s a few years of pain here on earth compared to an eternity of joy after this life is over? “Just one glimpse of Him in glory will the toils of life repay.”

Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to ask Him to mitigate the depression and send it to a devil’s hell where I think it belongs. But I have no guarantees He’s going to do it. He’s gotten me through 10 years of it, I’m confident He can get me through the rest. And I’m not going to deny Him or try to find my own solutions. Again, this stuff can be excruciating, folks, and it would be so nice to have some relief besides sleep. And I guess I could go out and get drunk or do drugs or go honky-tonkin’ or find some harlot to spend the night with or surf for Internet porn—any of that would at least bring some temporary solace and pleasure from this agony. But I’m not going to do it. I’ve told Him in prayer, “I don’t care what you do to me, I’m not going to do it.” If I have to bear this pain for 16 hours a day, I’ll do it. For Him. Why? Because of what He’s done for me, which again, is far, far more than I could ever repay. Indeed, I feel that what I’ve had to endure is much less than what I deserve, and if He pours it on even more, then it will still be less than my desserts. Because He is a wonderful Savior.

Part of why I’m explaining this is to, hopefully, help the reader whenever he/she might be burdened with some earthly trial or sorrow—and we all will be at some time or another. It’s not easy, going through pain, sickness, sadness, despair; but it’s part of this life, and I want to plead with you to remember, when some sorrow enters your life, how wonderful a Savior you have in Jesus Christ. To remember what He did for you on Calvary’s cross. To remember that He’s always there for you, like He’s always been there for me. That He knows what you are going through, and while that doesn’t mean He’ll remove it, it does mean you can tell Him about it. You can ask Him. And you can hope—and know—that something better awaits, if only after this life is over.

A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
A wonderful Savior to me.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
Where rivers of pleasure I see.

When clothed in His brightness transported I rise,
To meet Him in clouds of the sky,
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love,
I’ll shout with the millions on high.

What a wonderful Savior we have in Jesus Christ our Lord.