Monday, June 28, 2021

The Essence of Salvation

 

Monday, June 28, 2021

For the choir director:  A psalm of David, the servant of the Lord.  He sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul. He sang:
I love you, Lord; you are my strength.  The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.  He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.  I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.  The ropes of death entangled me; floods of destruction swept over me.  The grave wrapped its ropes around me; death laid a trap in my path.  But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help.  He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears.  Psalm 18:1-6

A church message board I drive by regularly will often advertise the pastor’s sermon for the coming Sunday.  The message was: 

Good News; You Can Be Saved

I knew what the message was all about – I’ve been preaching that same one for over four decades.  But, in today’s culture, I’m certain there were more than a few who don’t even read message boards outside churches, and, among those who do read, there were more questions than answers to that sign’s sentence, Good News; You Can Be Saved…among the possibilities I imagine:

Saved?  From What?

I’m not drowning – why would I need to be rescued?

For those who would respond like that the significance of God’s salvation is certainly in question, and probably in danger of a shoulder shrug, and off to the next round of reading FaceBook posts.  But, for those who read a sentence like that and experience even a slight cringing tug on the line that leads to their conscience (call it guilt if you like), means that they’re not far from the Kingdom.

It is the “distress” of that guilty twinge that alerts us in the innermost depths of who we are – that soul-deep, spiritual-center of our personality, our being, that King David expresses.  He called to the Lord in a real-time physical, personal, political, relational crisis, and was saved in every one of those respects.  Physically King Saul, was a former-friend-turned-enemy, who hated David, and hunted the countryside to find and kill him.  Personally this crisis turned David’s world upside down.  Politically David understood he was God’s choice to replace Saul, but there were all sorts of internal and ethical questions about replacing a king you had previously sworn to protect, even with your life.  And Relationally David was even more conflicted by the rejection of someone he’d admired and loved.  David had no answers, on the run, hounded like the guest of honor at a fox-hunt, hiding in caves, afraid to sleep.  All he could do is cry-out to God in that kind of dilemma.

And that is the essence of what it means to (as the pastor’s message board proclaimed) Be Saved.  That is the very destination to which any of us must arrive if that message is to have meaning between us and God.  We have to recognize our lostness, and the futility of attempting to BE ALRIGHT, when we know deep down we ARE NOT ALRIGHT.  We need to recognize our own need of salvation.  To be saved, one must know that we are lost.

For You Today

The next question, past that church’s message board is, Have YOU BEEN SAVED?

It’s not a trick question, or a trite old saying…it’s the central question a soul needs to know to arrive at the place of internal (and eternal) peace with a God who cares enough to ask the question.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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