Saved From or Saved Despite?

10:36p - Is it possible for a man to change? The answer seems obvious. Of course he can. Everyone knows that. And yet I cannot help but fear the elements of my sinful nature that remain. I am learning that repentance has a trinket companion.A portrait, in fact, like that of Dorian Gray. It becomes clearer to me what that image portrays and it is staggering. What makes me shutter is not what I was, that I am now redeemed from. No, it is the clear image of what still remains in me. This thorn. Mr. Hyde. It is not fair to say that Christ saved me "from" a tendency to anger, for example, as if it is some old foe of the past. Rather, I see an image of something fuzzy becoming clearer and that image is vile and villainous. Its like being frightened in the dark by a voice that speaks horrible, fearful words only to realize that by the end of it, your mouth is dry and it was you who spoke the entire time. That is what makes me shutter. So my life is one in which the value of my salvation lies not in what I have been saved from but instead that I am being saved despite an existing, present nature. If anything, I should marvel that the gates are held and the chains are reinforced by the security of His love. But I must never deny. I must never pretend that this nature is in the past. For if there is one thing I know now that I neglected for so many years, it is that I truly cannot be close to Him unless repentance is at the core of me.