Dr. Ray Pritchard Christian Blog and Commentary

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Saved From Myself

  • Dr. Ray Pritchard
    Dr. Ray Pritchard is the president of Keep Believing Ministries, an Internet-based ministry serving Christians in 225 countries. He is the author of 29 books, including Stealth Attack, Fire and Rain,… More
  • Updated Oct 01, 2010

  

Yesterday on the radio we asked callers to tell us who Jesus is to them. Not just what they believe in a technical sense but how they had experienced the Lord personally.

The very first caller offered a beautiful testimony of what the Lord Jesus had done in his life. After mentioning how messed up he had been, he summed it all up with this one sentence:

"He saved me from myself."

That's what we all need. Not just to be "saved from our sin" in some abstract sense but to be saved from ourselves and from all our self-destructive behaviors. A decade ago, when Joe Stowell was president of Moody Bible Institute, he told the crowd at Founders Week that, "Sometimes I'm sick of myself." I understand that and say "Amen" to it. All of us (if we are honest) are sick of ourselves sooner or later. A friend passed along these words from a song by Chris Rice:

Curse-reversing day of Jesus
When you finally seize my soul
Freedom from myself will be
The sweetest rest I've ever known.

There is profound sense in which salvation begins with being saved from yourself. The man who called in to the radio sounded mighty relieved. And why not?

"O Lord, please save me from myself" is the cry that sets the captive free. 

 You can reach the author at ray@keepbelieving.com. Click here to sign up for the free weekly email sermon.