A Hand of Rescue

Imagine this. You wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of loud sirens and the uncomfortable feeling of immense heat on your skin. Your eyes jolt open and you see that what were once clean walls are now mountains of fire. You get up and run around looking for a way out, but every turn you take has another mammoth of fire standing in your way. Your world has been instantly flipped upside-down. After scrambling around for a few minutes, you start to make out a shadow, a figure, moving within the flames, a savior. Moments later a firefighter is standing in front of you, here to save you. Under all the noise he calls out, “Follow me, I know the way out!” So, what do you do? Do you take his hand and trust him to lead you out? Or do you turn around and think to yourself “Why trust this stranger I can find my own way out. I don’t need him.” I hope we can agree that this second approach is not the most rational, right? Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. You, me, and everyone we know is given this offer every single day, and every single day, we reject it. Let me explain.

SIN is that big frightening “S word” that we try so hard to avoid, the word that has become synonymous with “condemnation”, “fire” and “death.” Modern society assumes that if you sin, God will get angry at you, hate you, and shoot you down right then and there. As a result, many of us tend to avoid this word at all costs, even to the point where we stray away from faith or construct our own version of God just to bypass this word. The beauty in this mess is that this is actually the opposite of what God has done for us. John 3 states, “For God loved the world so much that He gave His only son so that whoever believes in Him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its Judge, but to be its Savior.” Wow, here I was this whole time thinking that God was out to get me, and in one verse I discover otherwise.

From the mountains of fire ignited by our corruption, hatred, greed, and destruction emerges a figure, a firefighter, a being like you and I, with both arms stretched out saying, “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 GNT). Notice He does not say, “Come to me if you are perfect and pure of sin, I will give you rest”. Just as with any firefighter you do not need to qualify or check off all the “goodness” boxes to receive His salvation. All you need to do is stretch out your hand and take hold of His. If that is such an easy concept to understand, why don’t we see that Jesus came not to judge the world, but to save it? Why do we assume that Jesus came to tell us what is “right” and what is “wrong” so that He can condemn us for not living up to the “standards?” His love for us is much, much bigger than that! Why do we hear the word “sin” and run so far in the opposite direction instead of running towards the grace of God that has freed us from this sin?

Jesus came to bridge the gap that we made between ourselves and God. If this were a game of balancing our “bads” with our “goods”, we would never be enough. But because we are imperfect, the perfect God Himself carries the weight of our wrongs for us so that the goal is no longer balancing out debits and credits, but simply to accept God’s gift of salvation and foster our relationship with Him. He tells us the consequences of not doing so, which come not because of any resentment towards us, but as a result of our own decisions. Yet we warp that and make Him look like the bad guy for warning us. I can’t spend a lifetime rejecting a friend and expect to walk back into their home once I’ve realized what I’ve missed out on. That is why God gives us our life as an opportunity to experience and foster our relationship with Him. We were not created to be little puppets for God to judge, we were created out of God’s deep love so that we may live in union and share that love with Him.

If you are reading this right now, no matter who you are, what you’ve done, and where you are in life, remember that this opportunity still stands until your last breath. His love for us is so great that no matter what we do we will never deserve it, and He understands that, which is why He gives it to us anyways. The God we believe in is not a God who sits comfortably on a throne up in heaven swiping right or left on us. He is a God who willingly came down to Earth, lived among us, and died on the cross so that through Him we may be saved from our sin. That is why in John 10:10 Jesus says, “I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness.” Do you feel backstabbed by the ones closest to you? Well Jesus was too. Are you heartbroken and mourning? Well Jesus was too. Do you feel hurt, mistreated, suffering, tempted, unaccepted, persecuted, rejected, and underappreciated? Guess what? Jesus. Did. Too. That’s what makes the cross so beautiful; it’s a constant reminder that in it all, Jesus is with us and understands our pain just us much as we do.

Our modern society is so obsessed with comfort and pleasure that we remove the word sin from our dictionary because it sheds light on our wrongs and makes us feel uncomfortable. Ultimately, it makes us feel imperfect; a state we strive so hard not to be in. God knows that it is impossible for us to push through the struggles and temptations we face everyday and escape from the enflamed house alone. This is where the firefighter comes in to save and not to judge. God does not involve Himself in the world for the sake of condemnation, but for redemption. All you need to do is take Him up on the offer and see how He will flip your world right side up.

- Danny Al-Sammak