So, Salvation...

Sometimes I wonder why so many in the Christian culture of America simply do not talk about there moment of salvation. Is there anything more powerful and more telling of the power, love, grace, and goodness of God than the transformation and regeneration of the heart at the moment of salvation? Why are we not sharing what God has done in us to bring us from death to life?

There are many reasons for us not to talk about it. For many who claim to be Christians or to be associated with the Christian religion, it simply is because they have never met this living God at a real level and have not come to place of true repentance and self-death. I can not do justice to what actually happens at that moment in the lives of the saints, nor can it really be singularly defined (although there is clear explanation in scriptures as to the nature of what happens from that point on). Every truly saved man has a unique, yet similar testimony.

When I hear the the testimonies of the powerful men of faith throughout the centuries, my heart is always stirred. What an awesome moment! Reading just a small portion of Augustine's Confessions makes my heart rejoice. I know its been said before, but the work in salvation, the passing from death to life, the new birth of a son of God in Christ Jesus, is not something to be taken lightly... And I fear, with whatever tiny bit of minuscule spiritual discernment I have in me, that we have, as the "Christian" community have completely debased, marred, and trivialized this work. I hear it everywhere, and I see it all the time. I cringe, debate in my heart, become skeptical, and flat out get totally twisted in a knot when I look at most of the professing church and evangelical, often even totally bible-believing, community. I wonder how can it be that so many of us who claim to be "born again" who claim to have the Spirit of holiness living in us and yet live completely indistinct or unholy lives even by the standard of a completely fallen world. I do not see how this is possible when I read the New Testament. If we have known and met this supposedly Holy and Almighty God, how is it that we are not different? There is a right and powerful question put forth by the secular world when they ask what do you have that is any better than what I have when they look at the visible church of America.

A couple of key points I want to put forth and give only in question form so that anyone who dares reads this can ask their own hearts. First, do we today treat salvation with reverence, do we hold our hope of eternal security with assurance given by more than just one verse of scripture, but rather by the entire body of the New Testament? Do we read the bible only in portions and not in whole? Is our obedience and doctrine (especially referring to what is actually taught in the church to the people) compliant to all of scripture? Especially, Is our idea of what it means to be a child of God based on what the scripture tells us about how to discern the true believers? Read the whole New Testament. Do not be satisfied by a simple one word answer or a singular verse. This is not an easy question to answer and honestly, I could barely began to answer it. But, listen to this promise and follow it! "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

I want to put forth something that came to me after reading several books about men of faith from the 18th century, which involved heavy discussion on the mighty work of grace done in salvation and what that looked like. Its not a complete encompassing of the work of salvation, but one that was very evident and real in my life and I believe is a very applicable and biblical based understanding of what happens in the process of being born again. Again, God's working is far beyond any comprehension of mine, and I simply put this forth as a thought to be judged against scriptures and to reflect back upon yourself:

Their is a death of the self-will at the moment of salvation, an altogether giving up of any hope or salvation in and of ourselves. This is when the doors of grace are opened. This is when the path of faith is made known to us by the Spirit.

At Some point, we may acknowledge and know that in ourselves sin is very evident, and Christ is the Way to salvation. However, this is not the point of salvation, if we simply stop here and give acknowledgement to the cross as the way, we settle, we fall for cheap grace, we know not the the death of Christ in our own lives and in turn we fail to rise in His resurrection. We must come to the point where we realize there is NO OTHER way to salvation outside the grace and mercy of Christ; in other words, we have no way in and of ourselves to even grab hold of this salvation.

We must come to the point of TOTAL surrender to the will of God. Let thy will be done Oh Lord.

Search the Word of God for yourselves, I desperately ask you to do this and search it with an open mind and heart, willing to be reproofed and transformed in thought by it, for if you search it only to back up some preconceived notion you will likely find something to back it up and not look further to compare "spiritual things with spiritual things" as Paul commands in 1 Cor. 2:

Start in Romans 6:1-7

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to in live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin..."

1 John 3:14 "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death." then... 1 John 3:24 "... And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom has given us." 1 John 5:4 "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith." Read all of 1 John, it is certainly a good book to test yourself and examine yourself as John seemingly wrote it for this very reason.

I wish I had done a more exhaustive study, I feel very incapable of doing an exhaustive work on this, but I know it is something that must be spoken about and brought up in the heart of every person who call themselves a believer. Everyone of us must come to our own assurance that we abide in Christ and come to know our salvation in the death and resurrection of Christ. I'll post several links to good sermons regarding some of the things that I have spoken about.