2002-10-25
Good Morning Treasured Ones,
There are three important aspects of our salvation that we need to examine. We’ll see how Satan tries to cause us to doubt or even deny them, and what God has to say about them. They are 1) justification, 2) sanctification, and 3) glorification. While I’ve written about these subjects before, we have not looked at them from the point of view of our salvation. To keep in touch with the God’s big picture, we must understand that our salvation was nothing that we deserved, nothing that we even requested, and surely a great gift to us that came through God’s most excellent grace. In every other belief system outside of Judeo-Christianity, the individual is required to ask the deity (ies) to take care of them, taking the first step in establishing a relationship. In what I believe to be the one true faith system, our God invites us at a time when we are reprehensible to Him to come to faith [RO 5: 10-11]. Perhaps when we are in heaven, He will let us know why some people are given that invitation and others are not, but for now, we really don’t know the reason why we have been called and chosen for this remarkable privilege by the Lord. As I’ve mentioned many times, to make this invitation to us God had to do two very unselfish things. He had to give up a small portion of His power to allow us to have free agency, i.e. make the choice as to whether to accept or reject Him. The other magnificent step was that He had to make a sacrifice, at great cost, of His only begotten Son on the cross, so that salvation would be made an available choice for us. Once these things were done, all we had to do to be saved was to repent of our sins and come to faith in Christ. As Les Feldick so often says, FAITH + NOTHING = SALVATION!
In the manner of a review, it would be appropriate here to define justification. It is the act of being deemed acceptable to God and having God’s righteousness imputed to one’s spiritual account. That is amazing. It means that the sentence of “guilty” imposed on us by inheriting sin from Adam and Eve and from any sins we have committed in our lives is commuted to “innocent” by God. Remember, this is what was first done for Abram in GN 15: 6. Anyone who reads the account of Abram (later Abraham) in GN knows that he was by no means a perfect man. Abram became impatient waiting for his wife, Sarai (later Sarah) to become pregnant. Thus, in GN 16: 1-4 with Sarai’s permission, he impregnated her maid, Hagar. We know this led to a lot of trouble that still goes on. There were times when he lied about his wife, Sarai telling people like King Abimelech of Gerar that she was his sister [GN 20: 5]. In actuality, she was both his wife and his half-sister. And yet, God saw something in Abram that an ordinary person couldn’t see. He knew that Abram was capable of great faith and obedience to Him. Therefore in GN 15: 6, He justified Abram. All Abram needed to do was to be faithful to God for this remarkable blessing. That should give us great happiness, because we find that we too have been justified simply for repenting and having faith. Our sins have been both forgiven and forgotten. PS 32: 5, “Then I confessed all my sins to You; I did not conceal my wrongdoings. I decided to confess them to You, and You forgave all my sins.” HE 8: 12, “I will forgive all their sins and will no longer remember their wrongs.” The mode of our justification is revealed in Christ’s own words in JN 5: 24, “I am telling you the truth: whoever hears my words and believes in Him Who sent Me has eternal life. He will not be judged, but has already passed from death to life.” Paul places our salvation and justification in the context of the difference between the Covenant of the Law and the Covenant of Grace in GA 3: 24 to deepen our understanding. “And so the Law was in charge of us until Christ came, in order that we might then be put right with God through faith.” Each of us needs to really appreciate what has been done for us through God’s grace. We should meditate on the impact of our justification on our lives today and in the future.
PRAYER: O Lord, understanding exactly what our salvation means to us is difficult. We should never take it for granted or refuse to accept that each of us has been justified in Your sight when we came to faith. What a magnificent and unselfish act the sacrifice of Your Son on the cross was for us! We need to understand what You have told us about the torment of the lake of fire and sulfur to appreciate what You did for us and why our choice to accept You on faith and not reject You was a wise one. As far back as NU 16: 33, You gave us information on the horrific fate those who reject You will suffer. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram along with their followers who rejected Moses’, thus Your leadership, went to this fate. “So they went down alive to the world of the dead, with their possessions. The earth closed over them, and they vanished.” More information of the torment for those who reject You is found in the story of Lazarus and the rich man in LK 16: 23-24,26, “And in Hades where the rich man was in great pain, he looked up and saw Abraham, far away , with Lazarus at his side. So, he called out, ‘Father Abraham, take pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip his finger in some water and cool off my tongue, because I am in great pain in this fire!… Besides all that, there is a deep pit lying between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to there cannot do so, nor can anyone cross over to us from where you are.’” The very faith that You gave us, faith in Your Son, is a wonderful gift You have given us. The same can be said for Your Spirit, Who helps us to understand Your teaching. Words are inadequate to express the totality of the thanks we offer You for what You have done for us. In PS 66: 1-5, 17-20, the Psalmist sang the words in our hearts today. “Praise God with shouts of joy, all people! Sing to the glory of His name; offer Him glorious praise! Say to God, ‘How wonderful are the things You do! Your power is so great that Your enemies bow down in fear before You. Everyone on earth worships You; they sing praises to You, they sing praises to Your name. Come and see what God has done, His wonderful acts among men…I cried to Him for help; I praised Him with songs. If I had ignored my sins, the Lord would not have listened to me. But God has indeed heard me; He has listened to my prayer.” We are only now beginning to understand the magnitude of the sacrifices that You have made for us, and we pledge not to take our justification for granted or to refuse to accept that we are deemed righteous in Your sight. Today, we come in humility to Your altar to confess our sins and to offer You adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, glory, honor, trust, obedience, utmost praise and thanks. In Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
The Holy Spirit leads me to discuss the next aspect of our salvation, sanctification, in tomorrow's message. Our Lord loves us so much that He gave us a way to have an ongoing and very close relationship with Him. In fact, that is high on His agenda for us. RO 5: 1, “Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” What a blessing He allows us to enjoy-peace with Him! His unselfishness is a model for us to follow. We see missionaries giving up the comforts of their lives to go to unfriendly places to share their faith and help bring others to where the Holy Spirit can give them faith. Unselfishness like that is an example of what being at peace with God can do to cause a person to go against their inherited nature. When we recognize and appreciate what the Lord has done for us in our own lives, we can enjoy that same peace in deep thankfulness to God. That pleases our Abba Who has so much love for us. We can see His love all over the citations in this message. We are surely a blessed people to have such love available to us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn