If what the Bible says is true (and it is), then we all do. The greatest, most pressing need we sinners have is to escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for our sins. Surely, to people like us, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners would be the most important person! Finding salvation would be our most pressing concern – wouldn’t it?

So why do so few of us take this seriously?

Well, we try to deny God and his law so we can’t be accused of sin. Salvation is for whales, endangered species, rain forests, and planet earth, not our souls. The Saviour, Jesus Christ is a name we blaspheme, or a character on some blasphemous tv show. The whole idea of sin and salvation seems irrelevant, and a bit ridiculous to us.

Our problem is sin. We are spiritually dead in sin and blinded by it. Our understanding is darkened, so that we are alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our heart, (Ephesians 4:18). Spiritual things are foolishness to us: neither can we know them, for they are spiritually discerned, (1Corinthians 2:14). That is the tragedy of sin, it blinds us to the most basic spiritual realities – it makes fools of us. So, if salvation seems irrelevant to you, that very attitude is clear evidence of your need of salvation. Your sin is an undiagnosed cancer; your need is desperate, but you are insensible to it. You must be born again, before you will be able to see your own sin and need of Christ, (John 3:3-8, Ephesians 2:1-5).

But if ever our eyes are opened to see the reality of our sin, and the misery into which it has plunged us, salvation will become our greatest concern. Then we would desire above all things to find the Saviour, and God’s way of salvation in him. We will seek after God with all our heart – for we see reality! This is our first great need.

The Saviour explained this when he said: ‘They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the (self) righteous, but (those who know themselves to be) sinners to repentance.’ (Mark 2:17).

Rev C J Connors