Lesson 63 – Some Thoughts on Salvation
There is nothing we can do to secure our salvation; God will not love us less and cannot love us more. Being preoccupied with our progress in overcoming sin, serving others and spreading the Gospel, as to whether we are doing enough, causes us to be self-focused, which places a burden on us that produces anxiety and joylessness. Instead, we need to pray for increased faith to trust and be fully confident in the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross to save us from the penalty of past, present, and future sins. Knowing for certain that we will be with Jesus for eternity produces a tranquility that frees us to focus on all He did for us in taking our sin and commuting his righteousness to us. This will produce a desire to serve others and tell them all that Jesus did for us; we will do this willingly, as an outpouring of gratitude. At the same time, we need to pray for vigilance and God’s grace to not presume upon that grace by sinning deliberately. When we do sin, we need to repent, hating the sin and trying to gain victory. Some sins we may never totally overcome, which will keep us humble and more reliant on God’s grace. But we need to never be complacent in it but try the best we can to work toward some measure of victory. As an expression of saving obedient faith, our goal should be to lead a life that is “blameless, without any mix of sin, to avoid censorship because of moral or spiritual failure”. In this way we will model for others all that God intended us to be, which will glorify Him.
Why We Need A Savior
From earliest times man has known that a greater being is present in the Universe. Man’s concepts of God were based on wrong understandings, desire for God to be who they would like Him to be, and the wrong teachings of false prophets. This has produced false gods and false religions that societies still worship today. Man has looked for God in the wrong ways and in the wrong places; meanwhile, the one true God has always pursued a relationship with man while man continually flees from Him. He sought us, and has revealed Himself to us by actually speaking to certain people, through the inspired writings of true prophets, and through displays of His power and glory. From the beginning, He gave man guidelines and commands governing how we are to relate to Him and to each other. And from the first man has rebelled against the one true God and sought after gods that conform to their flawed concepts of who they want God to be.
God, being a God of love, is also a God of justice and demands that sin be punished; since He is infinitely holy He cannot be in the presence of sin, and so the punishment is eternal separation from Him, which is the essence of hell. Every person is rebellious from birth by nature and so is under God’s wrath; no one on his own can have peace with God. We need a Savior to protect us from God’s wrath and the punishment that will be due each one of us. But God, being rich in mercy, sought to redeem fallen man by sending His Son, Himself God but also human, to teach us how to live to please God and to die as punishment for our sins. In this way, God makes it possible for man to have peace with himself. But from birth to death, Jesus was treated shamefully and was rejected, and still is by all but a few. Even today, despite all the warnings and promises God has given us in His word, through His prophets, apostles, and teachings of Jesus Himself, the majority of mankind seeks after false gods and religions. Such false gods or idols can also take the form of obsession with money, career, addictions, and lusts, all of which deliver little in the way of true peace but cost much in the way of broken relationships and poor health. The true God offers our only lasting peace and the deep satisfaction we seek. Praise God for the gifts of his Word, the Holy Spirit, and Godly pastors and church families through which we can know true Salvation and peace with God. Praise God for His patience and His promises to help us navigate through this demon-filled, satan-driven world. We need to avail ourselves of all He can give us by means of prayer, studying the Bible, going to church, and fellowshipping with other believers so that we can succeed in ridding ourselves of our idols and follow the one true God.