Tired of the superficiality? The lostness? The emptiness? The loneliness of self-preservation? The discontent of self-service? Well, I sure am. I am a self-righteous glory hound, who needs the shining faces of others beam at me to keep me warm, all the while being a pale, sickly, cold-blooded reptile of a viper’s brood. I am moving through life cultivating my own career, possessions, connections, and trying to maintain the confidence that I should have as a man and head of the household, all the while feeling like I’m the imposter. I am sodden with unkind thoughts about others, arrogant thoughts about self, and the temptations to taste forbidden morsels, all the while being hungry–nay starving– for the good nourishment I should seek from God alone. I have delighted in humiliating violence done to others, and thereby shown the color of the fabric of my own violated soul ready to perpetuate the cycle of brokenness which has come against me. I have kept so many only at the distance that can give each of us a temporary respite from our bleak existence, but not really expose either of us to the unbearably penetrating light of intimacy through which Christ shines the most restoratively. I do so much for God and others putting them to good work for my own comfort, my own joy, my own happiness. I despair of self and cry out “God save me.”

To such a man like me, the Jesus’ saving work on the cross reaches. Jesus waits at the center for me to leave the surface and come to meet him here. The lostness is simply the effects of the curse of those who refuse to use the cross as true north. Every human’s destiny– everything in his life– is utterly lost and meaningless without being situated according to the cross of Christ. The emptiness springs from this too: we seek out “drinking fountains” from which the water will not satisfy, when the only thing that will truly satisfy is the living water of the truth of the good news about Jesus: that He is the real King, whose subjects become his brothers and his friends, and who will lack no good thing for the rest of their lives as they reign with Him forever and ever. The loneliness springs from the longing to be known by one who could reject you but instead wholeheartedly embraces you aka Jesus Christ. No one has or will know you more thoroughly and love you more deeply or affectionately. The discontent is swallowed up by the heart’s abandon to the one who served not for himself but for me. Because He served me fully, I have no need to serve myself. Because he did all for me, I can do all for Him and for others. This is a truly great Savior!

Every damnable offense which I have done– The cross has payed the penalty, satisfying justice on my behalf forever.

Every brokenness which I incurred at my own hand or the hand of others– The cross has broken that brokenness and created something new from it.

Every spiritually powerful abomination which the Devil has utilized for my utter destruction– The cross has humiliated it and made known that it is defeated utterly.

Let yourself come to the rightful end of your own efforts: despair. Come to the end of yourself. Only there at the end can you look up and find that Jesus is The Great Savior who is able to save a Great Sinner like me. If he can save me, he can save you too, just cry out!