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SALVATION IS A RELATIONSHIP NOT RELIGION

Mark 6:54, "And when they were come out of the ship, straightway they knew him," MARK 6:53-56
	The word "know" can mean many things from as little as "to perceive with the senses or the mind" to a much deeper meaning of "a thorough experience with." This knowing, then, is not just intellectual, but a personal, intimate understanding. Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ. Eternal life is having an intimate, personal relationship with God the Father and Jesus the Son. This intimacy with God is what salvation is all about. Forgiveness of our sins is not the point of salvation. This intimacy with the Father is. Of course, Jesus did die to purchase forgiveness for our sins because unforgiven sins block us from intimacy with God. Sin was an obstacle that stood between God and us. It had to be dealt, with and it was. But anyone who views salvation as only forgiveness of sins and stops there is missing out on eternal life. Salvation was intended to be presented as the way to come back into harmony with God. Instead, it has often been presented as the way to escape the problems of this life and later the judgment of hell. It is possible to get born again with that kind of thinking, but more often than not, people who get saved through that type of ministry view the Lord as someone to help them through times of crisis and not someone to know in an intimate way. Jesus died for us out of love (Jn. 3:16) - a love that longed to have intimate communion with man. Most non-believers are so occupied with their "hell on earth" that they don't really think or care about their eternal future. They are fed up with religion. They are looking for something that will fill the emptiness inside. Only an intimate relationship (eternal life) with our Father can do that. We need to tell them.

Salvation - A Gift !

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.