Ladies and Gentlemen, You Can't Save Them!

For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Prescribe and teach these things.

Superman’s not the only one that wears a cape and tries to save people. There are many who make it their life’s work to “save” people, often from themselves. However, the cold, hard truth is that no human being, except Jesus, has ever saved anyone.Allow me to explain my thoughts here (although, if I were a betting man, I’d wager that some of you already know where this is going). We’ve all seen relationships between men and women fall apart, sometimes after years of struggling to “get it right”. In the end, things just don’t seem to work out because one or both of the individuals is critically flawed. Maybe they’re self-loathing…or self-destructive…or they have severe trust issues…and the list goes on. Maybe there are also very identifiable traumas that are to “blame”…and it’s understandable why these people need healing.If the survival of a relationship depends upon one person saving another, it is destined for ruin. People aren’t designed to save each other. We already have a Savior.How many times have we heard of, or seen, couples implode because they are disappointed with each other, after years of living together. One says they can’t endure it anymore, trying to help the other “find the solution” to their problems. The other is bitter because their “savior” has failed. All along, both have been deceived. Nobody’s supposed to be saving anyone else, and neither should anyone be expecting it.Nowhere is this scene more readily orchestrated in life than between a believer and an unbeliever. It’s incredible the lengths that some men and women will go to in order to try to make a relationship work. Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM;
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
“Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord.
“AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN;
And I will welcome you.
“And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty.I have had a multitude of conversations with women who, after being asked why they have chosen unhealthy relationships, have intimated that they thought they could “save” their mates. They couldn’t. It’s an impossibility. Yet, some of these women have strung together a history of failed attempts over the years, with multiple men. To paraphrase Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The issue isn’t something lacking between the two parties, the issue is what lacks between each individual and God. I’m not proposing there’s not an equal number of men out there wearing “capes”, just that, for whatever reason, women seem to be more open about their failures on this front. I suspect men are just as guilty, just not as verbal about it. In any case, the intimacy everyone’s seeking in relationships is actually called “abiding” in the Bible, and it’s available to all who humble themselves under God. If you abide in God, you abide in true love.We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.The world tells us that we can actually save each other, that we can fill that void in our hearts for one another. But that’s a lie that plays on our arrogance. Arrogant people lap it up, proposing to be so “special” themselves that they will finally be the one person who is able to “save” whoever it is they perceive as needing salvation. When written out like this, it’s almost laughable, yet it happens all day, every day, even among the Christian ranks. The smoke of futility is hardly aromatic to God. To sacrifice oneself as a personal savior for someone else isn’t noble, it’s awful and it often frustrates true salvation in Christ. To entice another person to consider you as their personal savior is to oppose God’s will. Each of us has but one savior, and it’s not each other.Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.As the title of this blog entry states, “Ladies and Gentlemen, You Can’t Save Them!” People need to stop trying. You aren’t saviors, nor am I. None of us are. Our job isn’t to supplant the Savior in our relationships, no matter how “right” it may feel; rather, we are to encourage the most important relationship of all - “Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). 

The pressure of trying to save someone from themselves is far too heavy a burden for any human being, save Jesus, to bear. Such things were never meant to be. God allows us to challenge this by letting us fail miserably at it (some of you just uttered, “Amen!”). Eventually, most of us figure it out - that relationships are very simple once all parties understand that there’s only one that really matters - that a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, is what promotes healthy relationships thereafter.So lose the red cape and take the Superman soundtrack out of your playlists. Replace it with something edifying, like Josephine Pollard’s beautiful hymn titled, I Stood Outside the Gate:I stood outside the gate,
A poor way-faring child;
Within my heart there beat
A tempest loud and wild;
A fear oppressed my soul,
That I might be too late;
And, oh, I trembled sore,
And prayed outside the gate.

“O Mercy!” loud I cried,
“Now give me rest from sin!”
“I will,” a voice replied,
And Mercy let me in:
She bound my bleeding wounds,
And soothed my heart oppressed,
She washed away my guilt,
And gave me peace and rest.

In Mercy’s guise I knew
The Savior long abused,
Who often sought my heart,
And wept when I refused;
Oh, what a blest return
For all my years of sin!
I stood outside the gate,
And Jesus let me in.

Love in Christ,
​
Ed Collins