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^©

Looking for a Place to Hide

 

Monday, August 17, 2020

From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.  Hear my cry, O Lord.  Pay attention to my prayer.  Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him.  I have put my hope in his word.  I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn, yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.  O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is unfailing love.  His redemption overflows.  He himself will redeem Israel from every kind of sin.  Psalm 130:1-8

I can recall with vivid accuracy that anxiety, being on-edge, and the feeling of nervous forebode in the pit of my stomach; the preacher was talking about that book – the one where God records all our sins.  And he went on and on about it, picking at every-last-thing I’d ever done wrong.  And then he said if I wanted to make it into the other book, that one where the saved people have their names written, I’d better change – it was time to decide. 

That preacher hardly knew me, but, then again, he did.  He was speaking about the universal condition of human fallenness.  Every person has a sin nature, and we succumb to temptation in one way or another.  My sins may not have been the same as yours, but they are mine, nonetheless.  And that preacher knew it!  And I was definitely looking for a place to hide!

And then, along comes Solomon to back up the preacher’s argument, and then, blow it up in the next breath.  Solomon points to the most devastating (and annoying) truth in human existence – God keeps a record of our sins.

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?  Psalm 130:3

I don’t know how God could be God unless he was aware of everything.  My sins are not hidden from Him…and neither are yours.  Something deep within each of us tells us there is nothing we can truly bury so deep as to hide it from God.

But I also mentioned that in Solomon’s next stroke of the pen he blew up the whole judgment thing:

But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.  Psalm 130:4

In just two sentences that take just 8 seconds to read aloud Solomon, the wisest man to ever draw breath covers the most important reality in the universe:  We have all sinned and are guilty before God…and God has already decided to forgive us.

That other book…the one where the saved people have their names written…your name is already in that book.  According to the Book of Revelation names are written in the Book of Life, and only erased if there is no forgiveness for sins.  But, for those who trust in the victory of Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross was for our forgiveness, those names are not erased, but proclaimed innocent in heaven!

All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine.  Revelation 3:5

So, the good news in that uncomfortable truth the preacher was laying on my 10-year-old self, about how if I wanted to escape the flames of hell and get my name in Jesus’ book…he was right about my guilt, but he should’ve told me my name was already in Jesus’ book, written in blood. 

For You Today

God knew each of us before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs.  He had written our name in His eternal book.  And with each entry the mind and heart of God uttered that familiar word we see in Scripture, Come! 

For you and me that is the sweetest word our souls could ever hear.  It means we don’t have to look for a place to hide, now, or ever.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title image Pixabay.com ∞  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Psalm 130 see Night Waiting and What the Angel Said

Hopelessly Confused

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Monday, August 6, 2018

With the Lord’s authority I say this:  Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused.  Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him.  They have no sense of shame.  They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.  But that isn’t what you learned about Christ.  Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.  Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.  Ephesians 4:17-24^(NLT)

Hopelessly confused!  Minds full of darkness, closed and without shame.  It sounds like Paul held little optimism for the Gentiles to find any peace or sense and purpose in life.  But Paul didn’t reserve that bleak outlook exclusively for the Gentiles; elsewhere he wrote essentially the same thing about the Jews, that they were acting as people of darkness, despite the light God had given them.  Paul expressed heartbrokenness to the extent that he would give up his own eternal life if it were possible to save them.

Now, if Paul expresses this hopelessness for both Jews and Gentiles, who’s left?  The short answer is…nobody!  To the Jews, there was no other perspective from which to view things – you were either inside the covenant, or outside; you were a son or a slave.

And, truth be told, the Bible presents no middle ground where that is concerned.  When you consider the terminology of judgment passages, there is either lost or saved; those two categories do not have a common meeting place!

So, what is Paul’s point?  Actions are important; they tell you what is going on within the person who acts.  It’s not that actions create eternal life within, but actions announce whether the second birth has actually occurred.  Paul says to the believers at Ephesus:  If you really did surrender your life to Christ, where is the change of your behavior that is consistent with life; why are you still acting as if you’re dead in sin?

The apostle takes these disobedient Christians to task for their dimness of holy living; he ushers them into Heaven’s dressing room.  Take off the old garment of sinful living which is tattered and threadbare…that which can’t keep you warm and is not fit for you to wear before God; put on the new garment, your holy nature, knitted by the Holy Spirit, which clothes you in righteousness.  Let the Spirit direct your path.

For Paul, there is no confusion, no hopelessness when you’re in Christ…except if you say you believe, go through the ritual of believers in worship and fellowship with Christ’s church, but then say the opposite with a life that is largely unchanged. 

In short, Paul lowers the common-sense hammer:  New life is a changed life.

In Paul’s day, as in ours, there were plenty of people who claimed they’d been saved, born-again from above…and, yet, their actions spoke so loudly that no change had taken place, you cannot help but doubt their words.  Perhaps many were serious…wanting to be included in God’s eternal glory…but were just not willing to let go of earth’s lust and darkness.  It’s strange when you put it out there just that way, but what else can you say about it?  Well…here’s what Jesus said about it:

And the judgment is based on this fact:  God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.  But those who do what is right come to the light, so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”  John 3:19-21^(NLT)

For You Today

If your light has grown a little dim, and that Christian wardrobe looks a little dated, perhaps it’s time for renewal.  Nobody has to stay hopelessly confused.

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com