Wednesday, 13 August 2008

• Understanding Salvation

  Perhaps the misconception of sin is perpetrated by a humanistic idea of salvation. The idea that Jesus is the only way of salvation has been deluded by the philosophy that, once we have been saved, we must now perform to a certain standard or God will take away the gift that He had freely given.

  It is this delusion that causes so much angst and it is the direct result of our naturally proud humanity. We don’t like to not have earned something. It requires an enormous amount of humility to allow a gift to be placed into your hands and simply say ‘thank you’. Especially when you have no other way to obtain this gift.

  We try to pay God back for what He has given us. Somehow, we have the insane ego that makes us think that we have that ability. David Jeremiah once said, “Christians tend to either elevate themselves close to God’s level, or bring him down to theirs.”

  But there is an enormous, incomprehensible distance between us and God.

  God is holy. . .we are sinful
  God is loving. . .we are hateful
  God is pure. . .we are dirty
  God is good. . .we are evil

  The distance between who we are and who God is cannot be bridged by us. It is so bad, in fact, that Isaiah said, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” ^[a]

  The best we can do, is nothing. It is worse than nothing, our best is actually dirty before God. It is unacceptable to Him.

  Romans 5:6-8 says this, “Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.” (the Message)

  How quickly it is forgotten who we were without Christ! We quickly we forget how unable and unfit we were before Jesus entered our life and we begin to think we had something to do with where we are now.

  Or maybe, like me, you’ve grown up in church. All our life we have known about Jesus and its just old stuff. Of course we’re Christians! Me and God got it going on!

  It is this pride, this arrogance that begins to erode the foundation of our Christianity. It is this arrogance that forces us to become someone we might not be.

  Let me ask you a question. Why would Jesus go through hell just to make Christianity difficult for you and me? Why would He take us out of an impossible situation to one that was just barely possible as long as we did everything perfectly? Did God mess up? Did He forget about something?

  This might be a shot in the arm for you, but did you know that there is nothing you can do to make God love you more or love you less?

  God loves each one of us! While we were sinners. . .He LOVED us! Because of that, He made it easy.

  John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  Read that again, like you have never seen it before. Remember, these were spoken by Jesus himself. He said, “God Loved so God Gave, if we Believe we will Receive.”

  He didn’t say that if we straighten out our life we will receive. He didn’t say if we quit sinning we will receive. He said, “BELIEVE and RECEIVE”.

  The Apostle Paul said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” ^[b]

  It is by nothing that we can save ourselves, only by God’s grace, through faith. Its not by getting on our knees or any other physical act. It is a Gift. . .a GIFT. . . from God.

  So don’t you think it’s rather arrogant for us to delude this gift that God gave to us out of His immense love? Is it not arrogant to think that we can, by some act of our miniscule being, cause Him to withdraw it? To think that by some sin we might commit, we could turn God away?

  God knew we couldn’t do it on our own so He did it FOR US. All of it. He didn’t do part of it. He did it all.

  He did it all. . .for me. . .for you.

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  ^[a] Isaiah 64:6; [b] Ephesians 2:8

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