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If Salvation is to be a gift of God, it must begin with the first act God does on our behalf, to clear away the fog of our addiction to sin long enough for us to make an informed decision as to what we want for our lives. Even at its earliest inception, Salvation begins with God “doing” for us. We do not naturally come to God. We do not naturally abandon our evil and decide of our own ideas, that following God is something we want to do. It is not us who takes the first action in our salvation it is our God. One must remember that what we are being saved from … is ourselves. It is not some nebulous evil that lurks out there somewhere in the dark of night, that we are seeking refuge and salvation from. Yes, there is a devil, and he has many accomplices to assist him in his dark mission. But it is not the external devil who has the time, or interest, in tempting each one of us incessantly throughout the day to do wrong. Unfortunately for us, he does not have to. All he really needs to do, is to foster in us, the daily habits of wrongdoing, and a like a wind-up toy, we do it again and again on our own. The evil outside of us may be real, but it is the evil within us that presents the greatest threat. It is not possession by evil spirits that causes us to “want” to do wrong, it is our own carnal nature. 6000 years of genetic decay, and declining societal morals, combined with daily personal experience of choosing to do wrong – creates in us a machine that does “bad” things, motivated by “bad” desires, on a regular basis. The worst of it, is our lack of ability to even perceive it on our own. It therefore requires that God intercede for us and give us enough clarity to make a real decision for or against Him.
To realize that even this “first contact” must be initiated by God, is to realize that salvation is truly a gift, that was never earned or deserved. Throughout scripture ‘mighty men of faith’ seem to have performed great acts of valor, courage, and miracles following the will of God. But upon closer examination, even the faith they have in the first place comes from God as a gift as well. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8 tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves: it is a gift of God. Even the very faith that acts as our mechanism to save us by grace comes not from within us, but is given to us as a gift. The origins of our redemption comes to us a gift. Abraham was a man of considerable faith. Does this mean his gift from God was arbitrarily more than another man’s? Or might it mean that He was simply more willing to receive it, more willing to accept it, more willing to act on it than other men. Hebrews (chapter 11, verse 8) tells us that … “By faith Abraham …” combined with what Paul has revealed to us about faith coming to us as a gift, we see in totality that Abrahams actions motivated by faith, originated to him from God as a gift, the mechanism of his salvation.
Only one chapter later in Hebrews 12 and verse 2 we read that Christ is … “the author and finisher of our faith”. Meaning that at the inception of our faith was Christ, and at its fulfillment will be Christ. Everything that comes to redeem man from the slavery of self comes as a gift, neither earned nor deserved. It begins and ends with actions done by Christ to us and for us. It is also fortunate for us that Christ not only begins this work, but completes it in us as well. How many of us have made New Year’s resolutions, or promises to the kids, or to even to ourselves or God, that over time we have “let slide”? Our resolve and our faithfulness is rarely something that can last years, let alone decades, or a life time. We use the excuses of being “too busy”, or having “higher priorities”, or being “financially unable” to fulfill our commitments; sometimes even to God. But Christ needs none of those excuses as He is faithful to us for the entirety of His existence. He is eternal. His promises therefore endure for an eternity. He does not merely begin a work of creating faith in us, only to “let it slide” as He sees us fail again and again as we pursue salvation in our strength. Rather He waits for us patiently to see the folly of our “wisdom” and to release control back to Him to resume His work within us. He is faithful to see His work of instilling faith in us completed – finished – reaching its fulfillment. The text not only promises Christ to begin it, it is the greatest promise of hope in scripture, in that it also promises He will finish it in us.
Our choice matters, but our own actions are irrelevant. Our actions reflect who we are, whether a recreated creature of our Lord and Savior, or the slave to self we are inclined to remain. Actions do not cause us to become different; they are merely a reflection of who we already are. To become in harmony with the will of God, we must become different than we are today. We must be born again, re-created, a new creature in Christ – effectively someone else other than the accumulation of thoughts, desires, and actions of the person we are today before Christ is allowed to alter us. Who we are must die, in order that who we are to become can be effected in this world, in this life. It does not require a literal death of the body to achieve a recreation, but it does require a literal death of everything we hold dear – our inclinations, our desires, our way of thinking, and our selfishness. It is our illusions of control that must be torn down and released to see a difference in the core of who we are. We are not autonomous, independent creatures who need nothing more than our own strength to make through life and into heaven; far from it. In point of fact, it is our current condition of belief in ourselves that is the very thing that blinds us to real salvation.
Therein lies the catch 22; how does someone who is already blind, “see” that they are indeed blind? It requires Christ to “show” us that we are blind. In order to begin the process of recreation, Christ must insert Himself into our lives, interrupt our routines, and give us a glimpse of the contrast between what He wants for us, and where we are today. Some people refer to this idea as having a “conscience”. This inborn sense of right and wrong or inherent morality, is often attributed to God attempting to reach us. Short psychopaths, and sociopaths, most folks inherently realize they should not be killing others. We do not usually casually enter into physical fights if they can be avoided. This sense of apprehension and innate knowledge that to hurt is somehow wrong is a first sense that God is there. God is not looking to add guilt to our lives over our mistakes, rather He is looking to give us pause, and help us avoid the pain that comes from making our mistakes. Sometimes to reach us requires more intense interaction. Sometimes we are confronted with the contrast of good and evil in affluence, sometimes in poverty, sometimes in happiness, sometimes is distress. But no matter how we are reached, we will be reached in order that God can lift our blindness, if only for a moment, to give us the chance to make a clear choice to move towards Him, or away from Him. None of us reach the grave, without having been given this opportunity. There will be no lost sheep who is able to greet His Lord and claim ignorance or abandonment by the loving God who wished to save him. Rather all will one day confess that He is worthy – either as the redeemed in the city of God casting crowns upon the ground in abject humility, or as the condemned outside the gates who are compelled to admit the truth before rising to try to slay that which they would never learn to accept.
The greatest danger to the process of re-creation is inside of Christianity rather than outside of it. Christians who believe that purity is reached by the actions they take are deluding themselves perhaps more than the unbeliever who “knows” he is lost. Commonly the unbeliever assumes he is “doomed” because he is living a life outside of the perfection scripture seems to demand. But upon becoming a Christian, he learns to accept forgiveness for his failures, and still attempts to reform his life with no better success than he had before his conversion. Over time his inability to conquer his sins leads him to rationalize that either he just does not have enough faith, or that the examples of others he sees is what is leading to his own downfalls. A pursuit of perfection that begins with what I “do” ends in my failure and requirement for yet more forgiveness. Christians so often misread the Apostle James letter describing faith in chapter 2 verse 17 he says … “faith without works is dead”. They believe they must perform works in order to validate that they have faith. But as we noted earlier, faith itself is a gift. How can we acquire a “gift” if we are attempting to earn it, or work for it? Instead what James is talking about is the evidence of our acceptance of the gift of faith. When we accept the faith God gives us, it changes us. It remakes us from the inside out. It is the mechanism that allows us to put greater and greater trust in God to recreate us. And as we change who we are, we become someone else. The new creation does the will of God, because we are in harmony with it. As such our lives become beacons in the night, lights on a hill. We are not known for our great spiritual sermonizing but rather for our boundless acts of love and selflessness. Those are the “works” that are the evidence that “faith” is alive in our lives – changing who we are. We do not work to get faith, any more than we work our way to heaven or perfection. Our works reflect where we are in the process, nothing more.
But for a Christian to come to see that they are no more able to defeat sin as a Christian than they were as an unbeliever is a hard pill to swallow. Too often we believe the because we have come to Christ that we have been somehow given “magical” powers that enable us to defeat sin just because we declare we can. The truth is far from this. Coming to Christ was supposed to remind us that we NEED a savior. We NEED to be saved because we were UNABLE to do it for ourselves. It is this realization that we need outside help from God to defeat the sins FOR us, that finally enables us to see victories in our lives. Our victories over sin only come to us as gifts. We can no more achieve them on our own than we could achieve the ability to fly like birds on our own. And the entire point of scripture was trying to point this out to us. God knows we cannot defeat evil. He knows we are a slave to it. So He setup a plan to do the work of redemption FOR us. He would do all the heavy lifting. We would reap all the benefits. All we have to do is accept the gift He offers. Christ is offering us an escape from sin, not an excuse to sin. But to shatter our ideas of self, of control, or a work ethic that is bound to achieve results – is a humbling experience. Too many proud Christians think the solution to defeating evil lies in what they do. If they merely pray more, read more, work harder for the poor, at the very least they will be too busy to sin. Everything about their salvation lies in what “they” do, very little in what God does. Still other Christians have a form of blindness in thinking their salvation is a partnership with God. They believe it is a 50:50 effort where they do as much as they can, and then God does the rest. But if they have not done “their” part, then God will not do His. Whether a Christian believes he can do it all on his own, or is some percentage sharing effort with God; both are destined to failure and the need for more forgiveness. Real results can only come when we begin to let God open our eyes and begin to show us what we need to see.
The Apostle John describes the condition of Christianity well before the end of time in his book of Revelations chapter 3 and verse 17 where what we believe about ourselves is that we have come to know it all, we are rich, and have need of nothing. But in truth our condition is poor, blind, and naked. So how is it that the truth of our reality is not reflected at all in what we think about how we are? How could perception be so out of whack with the truth? I believe it originates in our complacency with an imperfect existence, relying only on forgiveness to see us saved at the end of time, rather than reformed in the here and now. Our self-induced efforts to achieve perfection have failed for so long that we cannot look around and find very many genuine Christians. Ones whose lives are alive with faith and recreation, whose actions of love are overflowing to the point where they cannot be contained. Oh sure it is easy to look around see an act here or there, but to find a level of consistency that rules every day, day in and day out, for as long as we live – is nearly unheard of. Yet such was the life of Christ. And after His ascension, it was nearly that way for each of the disciples whose lives were forever altered by the time they spent with their Lord, each finally learning to submit to Him in full. Peter was known for great acts of faith and miracles, to the point of dying a martyr’s death. But none of this happened until he was broken in humility by his denials of even knowing Christ when it mattered most. After this happened, he dared not even answer Christ’s question of whether he loved Him or not, saying only … “thou knowest I love thee”. (John 21:15-17) Instead of boasting of his willingness to die for Christ, he deferred to what Christ “knew” about his love. It was the difference between Peter relying on his own strength, and relying on Christ instead.
But in the world today, no one hears of a modern-day Peter, no one even expects it. The best we seem to be able to do is field a particularly good pastor, or evangelist, or television spokesperson. We seem to be good at speaking about Christ, but not living the life of a Peter who heals the sick no matter what they are afflicted with, and preaches with such vivid personal testimonies as to convert thousands in a day. We have lost the power of the gospel because we have learned to deny it to ourselves. Instead of accepting the spiritual gifts God longs to give us, we keep self in the forefront. We attempt to take credit for the spiritual victories God gives, and thereby reinforce our delusions that we “can” do it ourselves if we just try hard enough. Peter’s life changed when he let Christ change it. It took breaking him before he was ready for the work. So too, it must be with us. We must come to see that our condition is not so rich as we think it to be. Instead of having need of nothing (in a spiritual sense), we are indeed poor, blind, and naked. We must ALLOW Christ to give us spiritual wealth. We must ALLOW Christ to open our eyes, and cloth us with the white robes of HIS righteousness, not our own filthy rags. It is the gifts of Christ we must learn to receive, not continue to attempt to earn. But it all begins with a recognition of where we are. It begins with Christ acting for us. It will end this way as well; and it can begin today. Our lives can be so altered by the ever present love of Christ, that we too can become like Peter, or better, like Christ Himself – perfectly reflected through us. As this work happens our blinders will come off, and we will begin to see truth clearly. Only then will our lives begin to reflect harmony with the will of God. Only then will true obedience be possible in deed and in spirit. And only then will it be natural to us, as we are finally and fully remade in the image of Christ.
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