The reason I chose this topic is first of all many dear Christ followers have trusted in Jesus for their eternal life, but don’t know all the gifts that have been given to them. Your salvation comes with so much more than eternal life, wouldn’t it be great to actually know what it is. This makes me think of a gentleman who was given an iphone for his birthday by his grandson. He was very appreciative, and the grandson was sure he had given his grandpa a great gift. Later, with his checkers' pal, his buddy asked if he knew the time. And the grandpa reached into his pocket and took out the iphone and said, “Yeah my grandson just gave me this new pocket watch, it is 3:15.” Many of us see our salvation as an insurance policy for heaven and not very useful now. Well, I am going to tell you how to make the most of this gift.
My friend Laurie taught this lesson to start our Bible study this year and I asked her permission to use it in this blog. I am going to list 12 aspects of our salvation, there are many more. I challenge you to dig into Paul’s writings and come up with some of your favorites. Please let me know what I have missed.
1. We have imputed righteousness, now this is basically a banking term. Think of your life as a large ledger with the good (deposits) listed in the ‘plus’ column and the bad (withdrawals) listed in the ‘minus’ column. First, we know we all have made at least one withdrawal (Romans 3:23) and because of this none are good enough to go to heaven (Romans 3:10 and 6:23). Well, Christ’s ledger was all deposit’s, no withdrawals (Romans 5:19) and on the cross he basically traded. He gave us his perfect deposit sheet and we gave him our withdrawals, so that now when God looks at us He sees the righteousness of Christ, pure perfection. Romans 3:22, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”
2. We have justification, if you don’t know what that is please look at my previous blog, Justification vs. Sanctification. Basically, this is another part of righteousness, God sees us as if we never sinned. Romans 3:24, “[We] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
3. We are transferred. We were in the kingdom of darkness, dominated by sin, but we are taken from this place, and transferred to the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:13, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.”
4. We are redeemed. Redeemed is another banking term meaning purchased or bought. Christ’s blood bought our souls back from the kingdom of darkness and our former master, the prince of the power of the air (Satan) (Ephesians 2:1-2). Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
5. We are forgiven. The record of our sin does not stand against us, it is forgotten through Jesus’ blood. Colossians 2:13-14, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” Isn’t it is crazy, holy God is able to forgive and even forget, but we won’t allow ourselves to live in that freedom. We are constantly punishing ourselves for all our wrong rather than living knowing it has all been forgiven.
6. We are crucified and raised from the dead. This is an important truth that gives us the power to resist sin. If you are trapped in a sinful situation and feel hopeless to rise above, I would encourage you to read and reread the truths that are stored in Romans 6, if you understand these truths you will understand all the power you have through Christ to overcome. Romans 6:6 “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” Romans 6:4, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Galatians 2:20 is also a great verse to look at.
I will cover the last 6 next time. Meditate on these and think of how they should change the way you will live this life. Are you like the gentleman who got an iphone and used it as a pocket watch or are you going to understand what your salvation really offers you and use it as it was intended?
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