SalvationSample

Have Been Saved

Salvation is a gift from God - like any other gift, you can’t earn it, and you did nothing to deserve it. You could never even have paid for it. What’s more, salvation is the gift that keeps on giving: it establishes your true identity in this life and secures your eternal destiny in the next. It’s important to understand that salvation is a rescue operation that expresses itself in three dimensions – spirit, soul, and body – and in three tenses – past, present, and future. The truth about this gift is that you have been saved, you’re being saved, and you will be saved, and these periods are linked to your identity (spirit), maturity (soul), and eternity (body) respectively.

The root of the word salvation implies nothing is missing or lacking. It’s ironic, then, that we sometimes feel we need to fill in some gaps as it pertains to our salvation. The breathtaking reality is that God saved us by His grace, and all we need to do is respond to Him by accepting, through faith, what He’s already done for us. That means we don’t have to do a list of good things to get to heaven.

So, we’re invited to experience this internal transformation – this new birth in our spirit. If you’ve been a Christian for a little while, you’ll likely be able to look back over the past month, year, or longer and trace how you think and act a bit more like Jesus than you used to – ways you’ve practically, every day, moved away from darkness and into the light.

Paul talks about Jesus as the ‘firstborn among many brothers and sisters’ (Romans 8:29). Fascinatingly, the word ‘firstborn’ in Greek is proto – as in, prototype. Jesus is the prototype of our design. We’re cut-and-paste shaped and modeled to look exactly like Him, our flawless example. Our inner person, our true identity, is recreated in the image and likeness of Christ. God no longer sees you as a sinner. He sees you as a saint. We’ll discover, over the next couple of days, our growing maturity is part of God’s saving work in our lives, but our point of departure as Christians is identity, not behaviour.

Take a moment to relax into the wondrous truth - because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you have been saved. Nothing and no one can alter that reality in your life. Nothing and no one can strip you of your identity. By His grace, God has moved you from the kingdom of darkness and into His kingdom of light. You did nothing to work your way into this privilege. It is His gift to you because of His unimaginable, limitless love.