This is a
question that never crossed my mind as I formed my relationship with God. When I think about my salvation experience at
seven-years-old, I realize how miraculous it really is to have faith. In that moment at church, I had an ah-ha
moment. It was like a light-bulb went
off in my mind and soul. Although I had
not done too many bad things at seven, it was clear to me that I was a sinner
and that if I had to be holy to have a relationship with God, I was doomed. I readily accepted the offer of salvation
through belief that Jesus was the Son of God and that He died for my sins and
was resurrected to spend eternal life with me.
It was simple.
I still
have a childlike faith. Even as I teach
the Bible, I do not struggle as deeply as others to find specifics from
Revelation about when Jesus is coming back.
I read Revelation and know He is coming back as the Judge of the whole
world and in a time when those who have faith will be persecuted. It makes me want to connect more deeply to
God through prayer, silence, and reading His word. I know these spiritual disciplines will
sustain me no matter what I face as described in Revelation.
Others
have deep questions. They need an explanation
for the path of faith that is described in the Bible and that Christians share
with them. The story of faith is absurd
to their hearts and minds. It doesn’t
make sense that God would kill Himself. What
kind of God would He be if He committed an act like that?
The
salvation I embraced as a child made sense.
It seemed simple. God is holy. I
am a sinner. God loves me. God can’t be in personal relationship with me
because He cannot be with a sinner.
There is nothing I can do to stop being a sinner (in fact, history would
reveal that I had just started sinning by seven; the more I have grown to know
God the vaster my capacity to sin has become).
The more I form a holy relationship with God the more His love for me
becomes more mysterious and beyond comprehension. Why would God kill Himself? For love.
One thing
is clear about me and all the other people I have met in my lifetime. No one is holy like God. No one is worthy to have a relationship with
God. But many of us claim to have a
personal, vital and real relationship with Him.
It is evidenced by the ways our days are ordered up. It is clearly seen in the ways we become
better than we are. We become capable of
forgiveness for the most outrageous offenses.
We have been enabled with supernatural power to serve Him beyond our
natural limits.
God
killed Himself because there was no other way to redeem us. He is so holy that all our efforts are good
but miss the mark. It was the only
way. It makes sense to God. Only God could come up with a plan like
this. It also is the only way to drive
out our propensity for sin. If we could
take any credit for our great salvation, we certainly would. God killed Himself so our salvation can be
recognized as a gift of grace. It is not
about our good works, though good works reveal that salvation has taken place
in us.
Actually,
now that I think about it, salvation makes perfect sense. Ephesians 2:8-9:
For it is by grace you
have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift
of God— not
by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Comments
Post a Comment