Praise Focus-Rescuer

JOHN SHIRK – Today’s Praise Focus comes from Romans 7:24 and 25.

The Apostle Paul made this statement, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Paul knew what it was like to rely on the law during the early part of his life. He was a Pharisee before coming to faith in Christ. But there was a problem with this focus. Paul said in Romans 7:14, “The law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.”  The good that he wanted to do, he could not carry out. The evil he did not want to do, that is what he kept doing. This is what it’s like when we are controlled by our sinful nature. The answer to this downward spiral was found not in depending on the law, but in clinging to Jesus. In relationship to Christ, we are given a new nature that is responsive to His grace and is set free from the control of sin.

Knowing Jesus as our Rescuer is a reason to praise God in the Year of Focus.

John Shirk

john@wjtl.com