How often does salvation become a ticket to heaven? A once and done? “Yeah, I’m a Christian because I learned my ABC’s (Admit, Believe, and Confess) as a child or because I know who God is.â€� How often do we see people turned away from Christianity because of this very hypocrisy? People say they are believers to check off their get to heaven card, but the lives they lead do not reflect Christ in them. Not to say that we won’t remain sinners, once we have accepted Christ, but we need to be radically changed to live our lives in a way that glorifies God and not our sinful selves. “We are saved from our sins by a free gift of grace, something that only God can do in us and that we cannot manufacture ourselves … But that gift of grace involves the gift of a new heart. New desires. New longings. For the first time, we want God. We see our need for Him, and we love Him. We seek after Him, and we find Him, and we discover that he is indeed the great reward of our salvation. We realize that we are saved not just to be forgiven of our sins or to be assured of our eternity in heaven, but we are saved to know God. So we yearn for Him. We want Him so much that we abandon everything else to experience Him. This is the only proper response to the revelation of God in the gospel.â€� Abandoning everything else to experience Him, that phrase embodies so succinctly my heart for this mission trip. I love helping people, mission work is my passion – but until I truly experience poverty and an abandonment of all that is familiar and comfortable, I don’t believe I will truly be able to experience Him. To long for Him. To yearn for Him. To truly be able to minister to those I will encounter, I need to know God more personally than I have ever known him before. As I am striving to rekindle my passion for the Lord and get to know Him more, I hope to inspire others to deepen their relationship with Him as well. Give Us a Hunger: “I pray that we will be a people who refuse to gorge our spiritual stomachs on the entertaining pleasures of this world, because we have chosen to find our satisfaction in the eternal treasure of His Word. I pray that God will awaken in your heart and mine a deep and abiding passion for the gospel as the grand revelation of God.â€� “The revelation of God in the gospel is good. I invite you to receive it … to recover a passion for God’s word – his radical revelation of himself – and discover once again the reward that is found in simply knowing and experiencing him.â€�
This is the continuation of my “Radical Series” … if you haven’t read Chapter 2 Part 1, I would start by clicking here and then continue to this blog. Thanks for reading!
“We have been told all that is required is a one-time decision, maybe even mere intellectual assent to Jesus, but after that we need not worry about His commands, His standards, or His glory. We have a ticket to heaven, and we can live however we want on earth. Our sin will be tolerated along the way. Much of modern evangelism today is built on leading people down this road, and crowds flock to it, but in the end it is a road built on sinking sand, and it risks disillusioning millions of souls.�
Stay Tuned for Chapter Three: Beginning at The End of Ourselves
… The Importance of Relying On God’s Power …
