The other day, as I was coming home, I noticed something. There are tons of spiders where I live, and its fairly common for them to make webs in the corners of our outdoor entryway. As I opened the screen door, I noticed a beetle caught in the web, a few inches off the ground. He was still alive, and all his limbs were struggling in the empty air. Further in the corner, two spiders were sitting on their web, not doing anything yet, but their ominous presence an omen of their eventual consumption of the helpless bug. The beetle was wiggling like crazy, but couldn't free himself from the strong trap of the web. I knew I was anthropomorphizing, but I could almost see his terror. There he was, freedom in sight but completely unattainable, while those that intended to devour him watched, knowing there was nothing he could do to escape their trap. He probably wandered into the web innocently enough, not realizing that it would lead to his death. While his struggles did nothing, and probably got him even more entangled in the sticky threads, he kept fighting, clawing at the open air to try to get closer to the safety of the ground, but he remained suspended in the trap.

I got a stick and broke him free of the web, and as I set him down safely in the grass, I realized how much I'm like that little bug. Entangled in the web of sin, knowing freedom exists, struggling like crazy to escape yet doing nothing but further entrapping myself, while all the while death waits and watches from the corner. There is absolutely nothing I can do to free myself, and while I can try as much as I want, or as many different tactics as I want, I will never succeed in breaking loose on my own. I need somebody stronger, and fortunately for me, Jesus is that person. Though He owed me absolutely nothing, and I was nothing but a bug compared to him, He rescued me from the entanglement I'd gotten myself into. I owe Him my life, and that realization should affect how I live each and every day of my life.

Jesus took the spider's bite instead of me, dying in my place. Yet since He's God, death can't hold on to Him, He returned and killed the spider, removing the threat. While I may still wander into the web of sin, and require His help again and again to free me of it, death no longer waits for me at the end. Instead, when I do finally die on earth, I can be freed permanently from the world where such webs exist and my temptation to pass into them. Instead, I will live forever in heaven in the freedom He gave me.

For now, however, I can try to live a life away from the web of sin. While He will save me each and every time, I can't do His work while trapped in midair. This freedom had a price, and I want to live a life of gratitude toward the One who paid it for me, doing His will instead of continuously returning to the trap from which He saved me.