Saved from what? For what?

“Guess what? I’ve been saved! I got saved in church last night! It was SO cool!”

His excited voice cut across the high school cafeteria, silencing pretty much every conversation in its path. My attention was drawn to the line winding its way from the hallway past me into the cafeteria serving area.

Two young ladies had obviously witnessed the “saving proclamation.” One I knew. Dora was one of the regular office helpers. Dora said to her friend, “Wonder what he got saved from ... somebody try to carjack him on the way to church or something?”

Her only answer a shrug, she continued. “I mean, when you get saved from something, you’re usually getting saved for something else.”

A surprised look came over her friend’s face.

“Dora, you do realize he’s talking about a church thing, a Jesus thing, right?”

Since Dora still looked confused, her friend continued.

“I think it’s in the Bible. Jesus, if you believe in him, is supposed to ‘save’ you, to help you have a new, fresh life with a new focus — something like that.”

“OK”, Dora looked like she was almost getting the idea. “So his life before last night is what he’s saved from, right?”

Her friend nodded, an encouraging expression on her face, as they inched forward in the cafeteria line.

“So what’s going to be different now? And how can he start over again? What’s he going to do with this exciting thing he calls ‘getting saved?’”

As the young ladies moved forward in line, I lost track of their conversation, but it made me think.

Whatever it is we call that time when we accepted Jesus as Lord, the leader of our lives, we are called to move from our old life-focus and priorities to new ones. We’re called to identify, celebrate and use the God-given gifts and talents for the sake of the good news kingdom of Christ.

In John 3:6, Christ tells us that, “... only God’s spirit can change you into a child of God.” We must accept this awesome spirit-gift and put it to use as only we are created uniquely to do.

Further, he says in John 3:17 (we like to stop at 3:16) that, “God did not send his son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!”

We are thus saved from the results of our sin (condemnation) for a life filled with the holy spirit as we live and serve in the light of Christ.

Dora’s voice echoes that of Nicodemus as he asked Jesus, “How can a grown man be born a second time?”

Incredible as it may seem, the eternal gift of Christ makes just that possible. We are indeed saved by Christ from a worldly focus and set of priorities to a new life, reborn to an eternal, grace-filled focus in which we are called to live heavenly priorities.

How is your life and the ways you use your uniquely God-created self showing your own journey of being saved from the old focus, and for eternal and grace-grounded living?

The young man who proclaimed his new life-focus on Christ that day in the cafeteria will soon find that this is an everyday, rest-of-his-life project.

I pray that each day after that Sunday evening he is able to remind himself where he was, where he’s headed, and who (Jesus) his guide is. May it be so for each of us, as well.