SAVED
FROM THE LIONS

Topics: Jesus Christ; God’s Love; Salvation; Savior; Temptation

References: John 3:16; 1 John 4:9

Several years ago, my wife, Kathy, and a friend took their kids to the St. Louis Zoo. “Big Cat Country” had just opened, which took the lions and tigers out of their cages and allowed them to roam in large enclosures. Visitors could observe the cats by walking on elevated skyways above the habitats.

As my wife and her friend took the children up one of the skyway ramps, a blanket got tangled in a stroller wheel. Kathy knelt to help untangle the wheel while our preschool boys went ahead. When Kathy looked up, she discovered that the boys had walked through a small gap in the fencing and had climbed up on the rocks some twenty or twenty-five feet from the lion pen.

Pointing to the lions below, they called back to their mother, “Hey, Mom, we can see them!” They had no concept of how much danger they were in. But what could Kathy do? If she screamed, she might startle the boys perched precariously above the lions. The gap in the fence was too small for her to get through.

So she knelt down, spread out her arms, and said, “Boys, come get a hug.” They came running for the love that saved them from danger greater than they could perceive.

With similar love, our Savior beckons us from temptation that would devour us.

—Bryan Chapell, Holiness by Grace (Crossway, 2001)