Alright, I’m writing this in study hall ‘cause I want all the ideas to come fresh out of my head. On Fridays I attend classes at a local school-home school group-church-type-thing. About halfway through the day we have a chapel service a – little bit of singing random hymns, a little bit of teaching on a random topic.
Today we had a guy come up and give his testimony. I don’t have any problem with that part – it took a lot of guts. I was also kinda impressed by the fact that they didn’t go about and find the guy with the “I-did-every-drug-in-existance-and-slept-with-three-hundred-women-at-the-same-time-but-then-I-got-saved” story. (To those of you who know him, yes, I stole that phrase from Coach Hooks.)
What did disconcert me was that, after he was done, the pastor got up and essentially said, “Look at yourself. Do you still dishonor your parents or not respect others the way you should? Well, that means you’re not saved!”
For the rest of the talk, I got the feeling that there were three main things wrong here:
1. Our salvation is dependent on what we do.
All throughout the pastor’s speech, there were these little ideas that kept popping up saying “You’re not saved if you still do this.” Worse, at one point he actually said, “If you still do X, you’re a sinner, and sinners are separated from Christ.
One of the most comforting facets of the Christian faith is the fact that our ability to earn our salvation is equal to our ability to lose it – absolute zero. Nothing, no power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck us from the hand of God. We are saved by a faith that come s not from ourselves, but from the Holy Spirit. While we are still on earth, we are still sinners. We are undergoing the process of sanctification, but it is just that – a process.
2. Being saved instantly leads to perfection.
This cropped up a bit less, but it was still there. The problem with it is that isn’t simply untrue. Again, sanctification – the process of being conformed to the image of Christ and dying more and more unto self – is a process. We are instantly justified, but sanctification lasts for our whole lives.
3. We have to ask Jesus to save us more than once.
This one sort of relates to the first point – once you’re saved, that’s it. You’re saved. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. This point bothered me most because it was something I struggled with a lot when I was younger – this constant doubt of wither or not I was saved. A lot of times I would spend hours just praying, “Lord, save me.” The fact is, our sins have been covered by Christ’s blood. When the Father looks at us, He doesn’t see our filthy lives – He sees His perfect Son.
It’s always extremely dangerous when we make our faith about us rather than Him, because there’s one universal truth to mankind:
We fail.
To God be the Glory,
James,
Fallible, Young, Christian, etc., etc.
