Core Convictions VI: Me? I Need To Be Saved? by Maxie Dunnam

This is the sixth installment in Maxie’s series on Core Convictions.  You can find the first five articles here, here, here, here and here.

In previous articles, we explored the case that all need to be saved, all can be saved, all can know they are saved, and all can be saved to the uttermost. Having laid these forth, we now recognize that the big question is about salvation itself. Certainly Zacchaeus needed to be saved, Israel needed saving, and Charles Spurgeon knew he needed and sought salvation; but masses of people are thinking, maybe asking, “Me? I need to be saved?” At least a bit of that questioning may be yours.

We are exploring the dynamic of full salvation and need to stay focused on the relevance and context of our own lives. We need to keep asking whether we believe that we ourselves need saving.

The chances are that the question of the need for salvation is not a question that arises among you and your associates. It’s not even on the radar, especially for those who are educated, employed, housed, and well fed. For many, salvation has a distant, almost irrelevant ring.

What I have written about salvation may have little meaning to those who don’t feel that they need saving, but in truth, we all need to be saved. Perhaps not from the same thing, but I have never met anyone who is not in need of some dimension of the “fullness of salvation.”

To be sure, we all need “the new birth (justification), “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But that’s the beginning. Some of us need to be saved from addictive behavior; that is, what we do to avoid feeling things. We want to avoid pain, including the feelings of low self-esteem. Our culture has led us to believe that pain is bad and discomfort is to be avoided. We seek to slice out the unpleasant pieces of life through drugs or obsessive behavior; in doing so, we become empty shells, incomplete, and broken. From this, we need to be saved.

There are the obvious addictions. Alcohol and drug abuse claim millions who need saving. Professionals call this “self-medicating” (habitually taking unprescribed, addictive substances to relieve stress or other conditions). What about overeating or obsessive physical exercise? Compulsive gambling and sex? Those could be self-medicating behaviors. In spite of our protestations, we need to be saved from all sorts of addictive behaviors, particularly those we can readily name.

As I write this, the daily national news confirms that people need to be saved from simply behaving badly. We have seemingly lost the principle of basic civility. We put ourselves first and ignore the needs and desires of others. We act as though we are all that matters, and we become mean-spirited. We see that when political discourse is reduced to shouting matches and name-calling. We may be able to excuse that on the elementary-school playground, but not online, on the floor of the Senate, the office of the President, or in our families. I don’t think I am misreading it: meanness is growing, not shrinking, and we need to be saved.

We could make the case in a lot of different ways, but what about this: Would God have expressed such great concern if we didn’t need to be saved? Would he have bothered to come among us in the flesh, in Jesus; to live, teach, and suffer and die on our behalf, if we were just fine and had no need? Who needs to be saved? Me?