I Owe You My Life

Extricated from a burning car by a passerby, the grateful woman gazed thankfully at her rescuer.   "Thank you! she breathed.  How can I ever repay you?  I owe you my life!". This statement is repeated often in life or death scenarios.  If our life has ever been saved by someone we have a feeling of indebtedness towards that person. In the fairy tale Rumplestiltskin, the miller's daughter is trapped in a tower room unable to spin straw into gold.  When offered the promise of a solution to her problem, she promises not her own life, but the life of her first born child; an offering far more sacrificial.

 Why does this statement impact me so much right now?  It's not the statement so much as it is the concept.  If someone saves me from something, I will feel a sense that I owe them something.  If my life is saved, my life is owed; not as a rule, but it's a burden I will just feel from my grateful heart.

 And so it is with God.  He has in fact saved my life.  He's probably done so in ways unbeknownst to me many times.  But I know for certain He has saved my soul.  If we plan to spend eternity with Him in heaven we need to know that we aren't going there of our own accord.  "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8 NIV84). If this simple act of mercy has saved me for all time, shouldn't I offer him something in return?  He doesn't really ask me to, but after receiving such an incredible gift I want to give him something.  It's only right.  So I am in debt to Him. "Thank you God for saving me.  I owe you my life.".  My life is His, not my own to do with as I please.   Whatever He desires to do with it from here on out is up to Him.

 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen". (Ephesians 3:20, 21 NIV84)