Drawing from Jesus’ life-changing discourse on The Good Shepherd in John 10, Ann Voskamp offers a line for us to live today and everyday from.
“Jesus does more than save you from hopelessness; Jesus saves you for Himself.”
Read that again.
“Jesus saves you for himself.”
Really?
Well of course.
That concept permeates the New Testament; in fact, it’s baked into the personal salvation cake, of being adopted as children, joint-heirs, it’s made explicit in John 17:12 (“I guarded them so that not one was lost”), the basis of parable after parable, Pauline passage after passage, it lies at the core of what Jesus did and continues to do for us (save and plead for us).
And yet, despite those things we’ve known and read, just one sentence can make it all fresh in a way that makes you stop and go “for real?!” God, can that be true? Jesus, really? You save me for yourself?
So let me repeat that sentence.
“Jesus saves you for Himself.”
Does that mean he steals, locks you away, only to abuse you for his pleasure? No, he ain’t Ramsay Bolton.
Instead, he saves you from the coming destruction, from your own self-destruction, he saves you to actually save you, and he holds you because he loves you. And if he locks you away, it’s to protect you and also to give you the best of the best.
If you don’t quite believe that, think about this clip from Luke 12 that just doesn’t get enough streaming on the Christian Spotify list, because perhaps we think it’s a bit too demeaning for the God of glory in heaven to once again being a Servant-King, or maybe the whole “apron” thing, sadly, strikes some pastors as too feminizing.
Who knows.
Regardless, it’s Christ’s words and promise.
“The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat!”
Think of that: “He himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat.”
The God who washed our feet on earth is still so “knocked out about you” (as Rich Mullins once said) that when we get to heaven, he’ll don the apron, pull out the chair so we can easily slide into it, and serve us course after course of whatever Paul saw that defied words.
Christ doesn’t save us to sing hymns to him in heaven, he saves us to lavish love on us.
Think of the bride and bridegroom analogy between Christ and his church.
When my wife and I got married, my driving passion (well, really from our second date) was to serve, love, and put a smile on her face for the rest of her life.
I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, great. An amazing, beautiful woman who’s going to worship and sing my praises while I sit in the best seat in the house, while she endlessly serves me.”
I wanted to put the smile on her, and in doing so, she put the smile in me. There’s a reason for the Scriptural analogy.
Jesus saves us for Himself – not for praises we’ll offer him in heaven as he nods and says, “Yup, yup, this is me. Pure glory”, but for the delight of serving us at the Feast, for the delight of someone who wants to show us what he’s planned and prepared for us.
We’re joint-heirs with Christ!
Think about the place you love the most, think about going there on your own versus with the one you love most – that concept of shared beauty as its purest expression – and Jesus, similarly, can’t wait to show us what he’s already seen and known and there’s probably some giddy delight he must feel when he takes us to a vista that will blow us away and say, “See, you didn’t believe me, did you? But I really did have this in store for you. That’s why I said, ‘If it were not so, would I have told you’?”
So yes, as the Bible and Jesus himself makes perfectly clear: “Jesus saves you for himself.”
And the more we think of that, man. We think of this life differently.
Our trip to that vista is booked, now it’s time to prepare, get excited, live with that date always in our mind and once we pass from this earth, I don’t think we’ll enter paradise, take a long look and say, “Oh. Overcrowded. Smaller than I thought. Expensive. And Giant cruise ships blocking the view. Just wanted to get back to hotel room which was ridiculously overpriced and there was no soap either. Don’t trust Lonely Planet on this one.”
Won’t be like that.
If it were not so, would Jesus have told you?
If it were not so, what was Jesus even doing, coming to die for you and me?
Thank you, Lord. Thank you for saving me for yourself.
If you’re depressed, or struggle with any aspect of mental health…
For readers from the United States….
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
For readers, internationally, seek help from a local resource.
For salvation, Christ and Christ alone.
