Scriptures: Rom 10:1-17, Eph 1:3-6, Luke 15:1-7
Introduction
What shall we do to be saved? This was the question that the crowd asked Peter after he preached the very first post resurrection and post Holy Spirit baptism message. When the message cuts to the heart, people naturally wonder what they can do to be saved. In response to this question, Peter simply asks them to repent! Today however, our communities are littered with different brands of Church organizations brandishing different deliverables as the basis for Salvation. We turn our noses on others who don’t hold on to our “Standards”, and operate with the terms and conditions of our salvation. After all, we know how difficult the Christian life is, and how tough it is to maintain this salvation.
If you ever feel special being saved, different being sanctified and higher than the rest because of your anointing and special walk with God, think again. Salvation was not your initiative, it was God’s initiative. You had no part in it, it was all Him. You only responded to what He had done.
Our salvation is not by asking Jesus to come into our hearts, and accepting him as our personal lord and savior. No! Our salvation is purely God’s initiative. To be a Christian is to be loved by God, pursued by God and found by God. What then am i suppose to do? Like Peter told them at the upper room when they heard the gospel, you should repent, change your thinking and ultimately your life; then come to follow Jesus and you will experience the life changing transformation that saves. This is what must be done for a man to begin a journey of life with Jesus Christ
Paradigm Shift
Salvation is not FREE! Don’t for one second believe that untruth! To a Child – Food is free, DSTV (paid TV) is free, Making phone calls is free, light is free, house rent is free, in fact, everything is free. Why? Because a child is shielded from costs, the parents bare the costs. To think that salvation is free, is to see Salvation from the lens of someone who doesn’t understand the costs and the price that was paid. The day I realize the value of what was done to give me what I was given, is the day I will begin to handle it with responsibility and do all it takes to make the most of it.
Man was too hopelessly lost, too guilt filled, too rebellious and consumed by sin, that there was no way man could find his way back to God. From the very beginning, every activity to rescue man, was always God’s. From as far back in the Garden of Eden when the first man fell, the prerogative of reaching back to man, has always been God’s. He broke the silence, asked the first question, made provision for man’s covering and declare the SEED into being. God’s deep love for us, took the initiative. We were not saved because of any value we have, no, we were saved by God’s initiative. This same initiative is how everything else happens with us, we are born by His initiative and grow by his initiative. This reality ought to make us deeply grateful and totally responsible.
We are surrounded by people who haven’t heard this gospel, and hear it for real, they will not come to salvation by what they do, or don’t do. God will need to reach them, and there is no way he would reach them, except you realize the greatness of God’s saving grace towards you, the eternal damnation possible for those who reject God’s love, and the share silliness of having life and not sharing it with your neighbor. This Salvation that is God’s initiative, is the task you and I were given to pass on. For how will they hear, if you and I don’t tell them?
Applications
Children don’t adopt their parents, parents adopt children. The flow of responsibility for the salvation of others needs to stretch from those who are in Christ to those who have not yet heard the message. The same way God reached out to us in Christ, Christ reaches out to to others in us.
We are never to look at ourselves as special for being saved, special for knowing the things we know, or being more matured. These realities should feel us with a sense of responsibility to God for the lives of others.
If I am grateful for God’s adoption, and I’m aware of the dimensions of God’s love, and the consequence of rejecting it, it will be my highest desire to spread this love and adoption to others.
What Would Jesus Do?
Jesus stepped down from His glorious abode.