Stuck yet Saved...

I heard this story a few weeks ago, and shared it in a sermon.

Two brothers were playing down by a river. They loved playing down there because of the giant sand embankment that had been built as flood protection years before.  However on this day, because of some rain, or drainage, or just a freak natural occurrence the boys found themselves in trouble when they fell into a pond of quick sand.

Late in the afternoon the boys parents realised their sons hadn't returned and a search party was gathered and sent out to find them.  After a while they came across the youngest brother standing knee deep in the sand.

"Are you alright?" one of the rescuers asked.

"Yes I am ok, but I am stuck" replied the little boy.

"Where's your brother?"

The little boy replied, "I am standing on his shoulders."

The older boy sacrificed his life to save his little brother.  Just like Jesus sacrificed Himself to save us.  Yet we have even more in common with that little boy.  Just like him we are still stuck in sin.  We might be saved from it, we might be standing on Jesus' shoulders, but just like the little brother there still seems to be no way to get ourselves unstuck.

Some days I feel like I am up to my neck in quicksand, not just my knees - the weight of sin just seems to suck me down sometimes.  I get drawn in, I fail, I indulge and then realise I shouldn't have, I lose grip and fall, so many different ways to sin, so many times I realise I am still stuck.

But because of Jesus I am still saved.  I realise I have a foundation that keeps my head from being sucked under. I can stand on Him and know I am safe.

Those rescuers didn't leave the boy in the sand, just because he was saved from drowning.  They found rope and they pulled him out so he was completely saved.  One day we can look forward to that as well. Jesus will return and all those in Christ will be given new bodies and live with Him forever, where sin will have no place.  So not only am I saved... one day I will be saved completely.  There is great hope in that, and a perspective of eternity to grasp when I realise how stuck I still am today.