All throughout Scripture we are pointed to the fact that we, as Christians, are “saved”. Now, growing up in Catholic school, it is always really weird to me when people ask the question, “When did you get saved?” My response is usually, “Uh… I’ve believed in God for as long as I can remember, and I have always sought to have a personal relationship with him, but I guess it wasn’t until I was somewhere between the age of 14-16 years old that I actually committed myself to the Lord – to an intentional pursuit of discovering who God is and what it means to be His follower.” But even since then, it has been a rocky road of ups and downs — of my sin and God’s grace, then my sin and God’s grace over and over again. There was not a set point, a specific day or a specific time, that I remember “getting saved” by God’s grace for the first time. Looking back, it seems like there was more of a continual process of my failure, receiving God’s mercy, then learning from my mistakes and sin and trying again. The Lord has graciously saved me time and time again from my human desires and brought me into a place where I actively seek His will over my own. Therefore, this question of “when I got saved” confuses me.
However, despite my confusion and often lack of understanding about this question, over the past couple months, I have come to understand the truth behind it. Throughout Scripture, we are promised that because we believe and confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are “saved” from a place of eternal damnation and that we will, instead, dwell in a place of eternal glory with God our Father. Joel 2:32 says, “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Job also goes on to say, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God,” (Job 19:25-26). Job is saying that that because we are saved, we have this hope of seeing God. We have the hope of spending the rest of eternity with the Creator of all things and the Creator of our soul. Whatever your personal vision of what is going to heaven look, we are promised that it is going to be amazing!
Isaiah 66:12-14 provides a glimpse of what this may look like when he says, “For this is what the Lord says: ‘I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.’ When you see this, your heart will rejoice and you will flourish like grass.” Can you even begin to imagine this glory?
Over this past month in South Africa, I was reminded of this hope of heaven in studying one of my favorite hymns, “It Is Well With My Soul”. A man named Horatio Spafford wrote this hymn after experiencing some of the most devastating life-events that I could ever imagine. He was a successful lawyer in Chicago when he lost his only son at 4 years old. Soon after, he and his family lost all their property in a fire. Two years later, after he sent his wife and their remaining 4 children to England for family vacation, the ship that they were on wrecked in the Atlantic, and his 4 children died leaving he and his wife alone. However, as the grief-stricken Horatio Spafford sailed past the exact spot where his children had died, he wrote one of the most beautiful and influential hymns in the Christian faith.
“Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.”
These words ring so true to me as I take this journey of the World Race. Whatever my “lot”; whatever comes my way; whatever struggles or challenges that I face; whatever external circumstances cause me to doubt or fear, because I have the hope of heaven from what Jesus did for me, it will always be well with my soul.
May we, as a community of believers, turn our eyes to focus on the hope of the resurrection and the hope of forever with our Lord.
“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul.”
