No One Is Coming to Save You

I see this phrase all the time:

“No one is coming to save you.”

And every time I read it, something about it bothers me.

Because Someone already did.

Jesus Christ came.

I understand what people usually mean when they say it. Stop waiting for someone else to fix your life. Take responsibility. Do the work. Quit making excuses.

There is truth in personal responsibility.

But I think we can take that truth and turn it into something it was never supposed to become: self reliance.

We start believing everything depends on us.

I built this. I got myself here. I don’t need anybody. No one is coming.

For a while, that can actually feel powerful.

Pride can produce an incredible amount of energy. It can make us work harder, accomplish more, and feel like we are finally taking control of our lives.

But eventually, carrying the weight of being your own savior gets heavy.

I know because I’ve done it.

I’ve lived as though everything depended on me. I’ve believed that if I just worked harder, accomplished more, or became more disciplined, I could get myself where I needed to go.

So when I see someone else living that way, I don’t want my response to be judgment.

I want it to be compassion.

Because I understand it.

And I think this is somewhere Christians can accidentally get it wrong too.

We can look at someone living entirely in their own strength and judge them from the outside. We can criticize what they say, how they live, or what they believe without ever taking the time to understand how they got there.

Then we wonder why people want nothing to do with our faith.

Maybe instead of standing at a distance pointing out how wrong everyone is, we should remember what the Gospel says about us.

We needed saving too.

That’s the whole point.

Jesus didn’t save me because I finally worked hard enough.

He didn’t save me because I became disciplined enough, accomplished enough, successful enough, or cleaned myself up enough.

And following Him doesn’t mean there is suddenly no work to do.

Faith isn’t passivity.

There is obedience.

There is discipline.

There is sacrifice.

There is repentance.

There is perseverance.

There is work required in walking out what we say we believe.

But there is a massive difference between working faithfully and believing everything depends on you.

One says, I’m responsible for what God has put in front of me.

The other says, I’m on my own.

Those are not the same thing.

And eventually, trying to carry everything yourself becomes exhausting.

That’s why the phrase still puts a pit in my stomach when I see it:

“No one is coming to save you.”

I understand what they’re trying to say.

Take responsibility.

Get up.

Do the work.

Stop waiting for someone else to build your life for you.

But I hope no one reads those words and believes them in the deepest sense.

Because Someone did come.

And He didn’t come to help us become better at saving ourselves.

He came because there was no other way.