A Lesson Learned

When I was four years old my father wanted to buy a house on a lake in California. It was a perfect place to raise his family. When we went down to the boat dock, he gave us all strict orders to stay away from the edge of the dock. Being disobedient I went directly to the edge of the dock and fell into the water. Though I was only four, I can still to this day remember the murky water closing in around me. I was face down in the water and unable to do anything about my situation. My father did not wait for me to make it an act of my will to ask him to save me. He did not say, "Steve, if you simply raise your hand I will reach down and save you". No! In his formal business attire, he immediately jumped into the dirty water and saved me. He then took me away from that place convinced that it was in my best interest not to raise his family there.

I think about that incident a lot and can see how it is that my own Savior did all these things but to an infinite degree. Though I disobeyed, my father saved me without asking my consent. My Savior saved me by His death before I was even born, even though I had sin marked to my account and despite all of my sins that were at that point yet future. He did that while we were all as elect sinners, collective enemies of God. My father willingly got his suit dirty. More so, my pure and undefiled Savior willingly came down into the filth and pollution of this world and ultimately took upon Himself my sin, “...being made sin for us...” (2 Corinthians 5:21) He became for me by substitution that which has caused me to do the things I have done and things I still do. That thought makes me physically shudder at times to think of it. My father took me away from that lake and the possibility of any further danger in that regard. My Savior has removed me from the curse of sin and the deception of false religion and will ultimately remove me from all that harms in this life and flesh to put me in “...a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth only righteousness.” (2 Peter 3:13-18 ) I am glad my Savior did not ask my permission to do all this but rather, knowing I could not, He acted because He loved me.