When I was a kid in church I genuinely believed salvation to be unreachable. Nothing against the people in my old church but over and over everything always pointed back to God's rules. For a time there my image of God was as Him being the bad kid with a magnifying glass waiting for the and (us) to make a wrong turn to burn us or hurt us. It was made clear that nothing I could do would earn me a way to heaven and that only obeying would get me there... but, how? Sinful as we all are, how can we reach the state of perfection the standards of God seem to require?
Over and over thoughts like these filled my mind to the point where I sometimes even willfully decided not to pray since, regardless, I was "doomed to hell". Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt that salvation is so hard to achieve that it is almost useless to even worry about it? Have you ever felt just overwhelmed because you know you want to honor God but your nature simply impede you from it? If you have you are in the right place. Let me tell you the cure to completely eradicate these thoughts from your mind: get to know Jesus.
In a sermon a while back I heard a Pastor put it this way:
"The most miserable christian in the world is one who knows the law but does not know Jesus."
This could not be more true.
When you truly get to know Jesus and His character you understand God's love and when you do that then you will immediately realize that it is next to impossible to not be saved when you come to Him. Here's a story that is often underestimated and overlooked in the Bible. Is the parable of the lost son as told by Jesus:
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robeand put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate." - Luke 15:11-24
Friend, you and I are the 'lost son' in this story. There is NOTHING that you can do to "win" God's love and favor... the second part of this sentence goes like this... because you ALREADY have it. The people in my church got half of the story right, there is truly nothing I can do to save myself... what they missed was completing the sentence as follows: because Jesus already did it for me and all I need to do is come to Him. The price of sin has already been paid on our behalf. Here's the mind-blowing part, it was paid on our behalf even when He knew that we still have will to reject the gift. Jesus paid it not so that we must now follow Him, but so that we have the option of following Him if we choose to do so. God gave His Son on our behalf without any guarantees... and a God that works like that, is a God that offers a salvation that's very hard NOT to get.
Jesus' love for you for you and me is simply hard to understand, but it is as real as the fact that you're breathing at this moment. Come to Him, get to know Him, and you'll arrive at the same conclusion I have: it's impossible NOT to be saved.
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