Saved By a Love Punch

Lifeguards learn that when someone is drowning, they should approach the person from behind to avoid the victim instinctively climbing, clawing, choking, or pushing them down in the process. 

If the attempts to save them are not working and it's getting perilous, a lifeguard may have to do something drastic like a punch in the gut to stun them into submission so they both can survive. 

When all else fails, throwing that punch is the most loving thing someone can do.

When someone we love is in peril, we do the same thing don’t we? We do all we can to try and save them.

We jump in, rush to their rescue, and, in our futile attempts, get pulled right down with them. 

Exhausted, we swim back to shore, wondering what it will take to save them.

We need to give a tough love punch and protect ourselves as well.

I've had to give that love punch a few times.

The hard reality is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  

When it doesn’t, we are left feeling helpless as we watch others refuse to receive the help they so desperately need. 

I wonder if that’s how Jesus feels sometimes.

He will stop at nothing to save and rescue us. 

He was willing to sacrifice everything so we could be saved. He was tortured, mocked, scorned, rejected, abandoned, betrayed, and even killed. Nothing stopped Him from trying to save us. 

And what do we so often do in response?

We fight, claw, deny, and push Him away. We refuse the one thing that could truly save us. 

And what does Jesus do?

He keeps jumping in for the heroic rescue and gives us a good old love punch to knock a little sense into us. 

He loves us so much, He will do whatever it takes. He is never, ever, EVER going to give up on us.

Thank God.

So, can we please stop all the squirming and fighting?

Can we submit and receive the help we so desperately need so we can be rescued and saved?

I say yes, how about you?

God loves you, and so do I!

Psalms 55:16

As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me.

Psalms 68:20

Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.