Salvation is Highly Individual

Like me, people describe their spiritual side with descriptors like these: a spiritual journey, a spiritual path, a spiritual walk and so forth. Our personal spiritual life is always changing so we use words that show a progression. Spiritual life is rarely stagnate nor stale and has life and strength to it. But then we come to something new where a choice must be made. We often come to signposts in our spiritual travels where we have a decision to make.

The choices we make will have consequences and also affect the people we interact with on a frequent basis.

This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. . . .” Jeremiah 6:16  NIV

What we choose to do with the choice in front of us may mean a progression or a regression in our spiritual journey, depending on our response. Sometimes we take detours off the desired path and then make a correction, return, and then move forward again. Nothing is wasted especially if one is wise and chooses to learn from their mistakes while facing the difficulty. There are lessons learned no matter where we are in our spiritual journey. Later on, one can look back and see ‘from whence we came’ the further we are down the path. An interesting exercise is undertaken when we glance back and group the essentials together as ‘markers,’ places of decision, signposts on the journey of spiritual life.

Time and time again we make spiritual choices, in fact, every day is a choice as to how we will live it. We can choose the wrong path, when we willfully choose our own way rather than God’s way. Read the following sobering words.

. . . But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.‘ Jeremiah 6:16

When does spiritual life begin?

When did your spiritual life begin? Has it begun? How would you know if it has begun? These are important questions for we all have a spiritual side even if it is inactive. Usually we do have some form of religion or creed that we live by, something we are passionate about and believe in with our core being. For the Christ-follower, the Christian, the believer, the regenerate (specific terminology), there is a progression that builds–like building blocks, one on top of the other–with a godly purpose in mind.

There is always something more to be learned and applied as the years tumble forward.

Have you ever consciously thought about that, where your salvation journey began? A Christian has a beginning point. But our beginning point is not God’s beginning point. Some of you, like me, have been on your spiritual journey most of your lives. Although we have the same destination in mind, the heavenly hereafter, our journeys are not identical. However, they do have similarities. I spent half my life with a different focus than I have today. It is for this reason I would like to take some time to talk about my spiritual journey that it might encourage you to explore what God has for you.

My faith journey was incomplete because of an unknowing on my part.

Let me explain the “unknowing.” You don’t know what you don’t know. I didn’t know there could be more than a faithful, faith-filled Christian walk. There was one undeveloped area in me that I was totally unaware of and with no knowledge that it existed, other than skepticism toward concepts I knew little about. I missed the real point of following Christ even though my Christian life was good. Emotional pain awakened me to the missing component. I, simply, needed more of God than I already had, spiritually speaking. The pain was too great, the misery, too deep, the stilted-ness, too profound, and the actions, too rote. I knew I was failing, and it didn’t make sense to me.

Like many of my Christian sisters and brothers, I loved and served God.

I followed God faithfully, I read my bible faithfully, I served faithfully, I prayed faithfully, I loved God deeply, and I obeyed the biblical commandments circumspectly. I couldn’t have made it without God, He was my Helper and Keeper. There were areas of weakness that tripped me up, like pride and negative thoughts, but all in all I was what you would call a good Christian in name and deed. I didn’t know anything was amiss because I was doing it right as far as I knew, and I cared about the lost who needed Christ as Savior.

Many travel the length of their life by “doing” the right things but still miss the point that it is about intimate, relationally-centered, soul-focused, “being” in Christ. This is when a Christian becomes “alive” in Christ, so much so that it makes them a living testimony.

We’ve been satisfied with so little when we could have so much.

Recently I shared with a group of ladies a list of components found in the Christian life that are significant to our growth and spiritual strength. We started with salvation. Faith, belief, and grace are what bring us to a point of spiritual salvation. Salvation is a miracle of grace, a God transforming transaction we experience in our soul through personal faith in Jesus Christ. This is an active faith, a belief, an embracing of Christ and truth, not a formula or a compilation of good works where one believes salvation is earned or achieved. It is something entirely different.

It is far more about what God does for us than what we do in response.

We believe. God forgives, awakens, enlivens, restores and embraces. Salvation then becomes active belief that is on-going, to be nurtured and grown, fulfilled throughout a lifetime. Eternal life is Eternal Life living and breathing in the Christian, not only a futuristic experience to be enjoyed up in heaven.

We can experience the eternal now, because Christ–that which is eternal–is in us.

We can recite the components of salvation like a formula as in A + B = C. We may say faith + grace + forgiveness + God imputing His righteousness in us = Redemption = Salvation, or something similar in context to this. These words are true when heartfelt and believed but they will not engage the mind and soul if spoken without heed to their content. Without an openness to God, these precious concepts are only words, words without meaning. Some add on other actions like certain works, communion, baptism or acts of obedience, yet we would do well to focus on the Holy Word. God says these simple but profound words, “By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”  It also says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Acts 6:31.

Christ came to bring us life. Ask the woman at the well, she was given living water for her thirsty soul.

I asked when your spiritual life began. For me, it started long before I realized it as such. I was fortunate to be born into a family of believers whose heritage was founded with historic roots to faith for generations. The groundwork was there for me to partake of. As a little girl of age seven, I remember kneeling by my bed with my mother and brother as I prayed to Jesus to be my Savior. I believed and was certain of what I believed in. I was baptized shortly thereafter.

My next marker came at age sixteen. The Holy Spirit was alive in me and I felt sorrow and tears like never before. They wouldn’t stop flowing. That night, sitting alone on the outside plywood platform of a cabin-like tent at the edge of a canyon up in the Sierra Nevada mountains near LaPorte, California, I told God that I wanted to live for Him and serve Him. He was very real to me. I came away different as a result of that conversation with God, where I prayed my heart out and gave Him my life. It was a signpost, a marker, in my life. Many people in Christian circles call this marker a decision to dedicate your life to God. I did not realize how far-reaching this decision would take me.

It starts with God. God calls us first. Then we respond to Him. And it ends with God. We are His good work and His delight.

God is drawing us to Himself. He is active in the world. In many ways people are brought close to Him despite the resistance in their inner selves; God reveals Himself through nature, thoughts, spiritual people, love, music, His Word–the Bible, and daily experiences. Often people wrestle with a niggling question about God as they contemplate that He could, actually, be real. Early on, a separation between God and humans pulled us apart as sin, willfulness and selfishness had its way with us. The intimate relationship God once had with our human father and mother, Adam and Eve, was broken and then remained divided. Hope diminished.

The result was painful and lonely on both sides, human and Divine.

Loving restoration in the intimacy of relationship has been the desire of God ever since the separation. He wishes to give us life. Through the redemptive life of His Son, Jesus Christ, we are able to access a living relationship with God. It is our desire as well, although one may not realize it until they respond. The human need for significance is wrapped up in the basic need deep within us for meaningful relationship, which is discovered through meaningful Life (Jesus Christ) far beyond our ability to find and absorb it. That is where God comes in.

The Loving One seeks the beloved . . . and then the beloved seeks the Loving One.

God loved us. He wanted to restore us to a right relationship with Himself. Much as the father of the prodigal son desired a restored relationship with his wayward son, God is gracious in that same way. Christ came to provide a way for us to return to God as a welcomed family member; forgiven, cleansed, loved, redeemed, and in a right and healthy relationship. It is our part to respond to God, to God’s nature, to His thoughts, grace, love, and hope. I think you can see it clearly by picturing God as the loving and wishful father and yourself as the lost and miserable son. We, like the son, have nothing to offer but ourselves . . . and that is enough. God wants us, our heart, our soul; not our accomplishments, achievements, or worthiness.

The father’s love was not offered according to the son’s merit and goodness, it was offered according to the father’s love, mercy and grace.

Repentance on our part shows a right attitude toward God, God’s forgiveness, and God’s love. We are given grace so large that one cannot comprehend it. We are given love so immense that we cannot completely receive it. We are given forgiveness so genuine that one is greatly humbled by it. “Christ came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” Praises to God! We are blessed beyond measure.

That is how it is with God. His love trumps all else and His mercies are new every day for every one of us.

More about spiritual markers will be shared in another post. We will venture into the areas less commonly found in evangelical Christians’ spiritual experiences.

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Have you had any life-changing spiritual markers?