So
what is Salvation?
We
know so much about salvation from our past religious experience, our life, our
study, our pastor, and from books etc. But have we ever taken time to
understand What God has to say about it?
It’s
time we heard from God directly. Well here is what God tells us, from his
word.
Salvation
is a Gift, it’s Not a Reward, A Total free Gift of God. It cannot be purchased
or earned. It shows us how Good a Father we have. (Ephesians 2:8) “For it
is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God— 9 not by
works, so that no one can boast “.
So
you see, no matter what we do to earn this, that cannot get us saved, it is not
by working, but it’s just by believing. If we could earn the right to be
saved, then we could boast about our righteousness. God doesn’t want that. We
can’t boast in our goodness or our good works.
So
the greatest Miracle of all times ever, of “Being Saved “happened to us, not
because of what we did or did not do. It happened to us because we simply chose
to believe, by faith. We are saved by believing and confessing it. (Romans
10:9) - If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So this is
how we were saved. Just by believing and just by confessing and nothing
more. It was not by any law, not by going to church regularly or paying
tithes or being holy or being pious or religious, but by simply believing and
confessing that we cannot save ourselves by our standards and we needed help,
and when Jesus came to help us , we simply received that help from Him. So we received
the greatest Miracle or all time by just believing, and now is it right to
expect the rest of the small miracles by other means?
The
rest of the miracles by which I mean, are the ones which are less significant than
the greatest miracle of “Salvation “ are love, joy, peace, kindness, happiness,
healing the sick, raising the dead, walking in fullness, prosperity in soul,
spirit, mind and body and the total fullness of God and other earthly blessings
too!!!!! Do you think these miracles
need our works?
Well,
the Holy Spirit wants us to understand the answer. And the Answer Is NO!!!
NO!!!
None of these good things of God happens to us, because of our goodness or our
badness, it happens to us as a ‘Gift of God ‘freely and to accept that, we
simply need to believe.
So
this is the problem in Christian life- We can’t believe in accepting these
miracles, because we constantly are reminded about our shortcomings. But can we
think for a moment? The greatest gift of God , which is THE SALVATION , we
received by just believing when we were still immersed in sin , now does
it make sense to accept the rest of the small gifts by earning it, after
getting saved ? We received Jesus Himself freely. We did not earn Jesus. We did
not buy Jesus; He was a gift from God. Does it make sense now, to earn
everything else that Jesus gives? Does it make sense now, to “try and buy
“everything else that Jesus gives? We have Jesus himself freely, we received
Jesus Himself freely and now everything else he gives we have to work for it?
When
we were lost in sin, our approach to God was a total surrender. Once we got
God, now our approach to God is, God I am this good, so bless me this much!!!!!
I am that Good, so bless me that much!! It is like a 10 tokens for 10 church attendance
and therefore we deserve 10 blessings!! Give 100$ tithe to God and then command
God to give a 1000$ dollar with a legalistic mentality. We always are on the
run to be good, and do good, and do anything and everything so that we can earn
God’s Love, we can ‘Buy ‘God’s love with our acts of self-righteousness!!! Haven’t
it ever occurred it to us that might be so wrong? This sense of earning a right
standing with God, trying to buy the miracles of Jesus has crippled us all for
a long time.
It’s
time we understood this and begin to realize our potential in Christ. We cannot
buy the goodness of God by our acts of righteousness. We cannot earn a right
standing with God. If we try to work our salvation through Law, then we are
bound by Law. But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13).
We either keep the entire Law (James 2:10), or simply live by the Law of faith
through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:37-31). We are no more under the curse, we are
under the Grace. We are no more bound by law; we are now bound by the
righteousness of Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:21 - God made him who had no sin to
be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.)
God fully exchanged our sin totally for his righteousness.
Whether
we like it or not, whether we know it or not, we are now the righteousness of
God himself.
Why?
Because we are covered in Jesus. (Romans 13:14 - Rather, clothe yourselves with
the Lord Jesus Christ) See, when God looks at us, He is looking at Jesus. Imagine
a chick that is in the shell, we can’t see the chick, but just the shell. Illustratively
Jesus is the shell and we are inside Jesus. So when God looks at us, he is
actually looking at Jesus and His holiness and His righteousness. And we are
covered or clothed by his righteousness. So it’s time that we enter the rest, the
sabbatical rest – to stop working and enter his rest (Hebrews 4:1-11)
God
is not angry at us anymore, God is not cursing us anymore, God is not in
disgust anymore, and God simply loves us all. Because his curse and his wrath
he poured out on his beloved son Jesus. Jesus took it all, suffered it for us,
and bore our transgressions; not just that he bore all the transgressions of
entire humanity since the beginning of creation till the end of the days, every
single one of them. God promised Jesus, that Jesus has to suffer and that God
will put the whole burden of the entire universe on Jesus’s shoulders.
(Isaiah 53: 1 to 12)
Does
it make sense, to imagine, that God punished Jesus for all our sins, and he
continues to punish us even now? Isn’t
that injustice done to Jesus? He promised Jesus, that it will ‘all’ be on Him,
and today is He cheating on Jesus and making us suffer too? He punished Jesus
saying that he is being punished once for all, for everyone on the planet forever,
and today He continues to punish us all too? Did God lie to His son Jesus? If
God continues punishes even now, then he changes his mind, seems like he
changes his mind often right? Well, what does the scripture say about that? The
scripture says No! God is not a man to change his mind (Numbers 23:19 - God is
not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his
mind, Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? ) Amen!
God does not change his mind!
Jesus
paid it all; we DON’T have to pay for it. It was done. When Jesus stretched out
His arms in the cross and the last drop of his blood and water ran out while He
said, “IT IS DONE “it was all done. God and men were reunited. Finally, peace
on earth and mercy mild came down once for all. Peace between God and men, not
peace between men and men. So you see? We need to realize that nothing about us
is going to make God love us less or make God love us more!!!! We have to
meditate on that day and night and get that into every single cell in our body
and blood!
This
should set us free from the bondage of legalism– Know the truth and it will set
us free. (We need to read Galatians fully in one sitting and this another
Gospel of Legalism which is a deadly trap for Christians becomes evident in
Galatians, and apostle Paul turns Mad at people who preach legalism. So we must
get out of legalism and enter Grace and live in Grace by faith. I will continue about salvation in my next
post.
Thanks
for reading.
Every
Blessing.
Sam
Salvation
is received by Faith and IT IS KEPT BY FAITH and NOT BY WORKS.