SALVATION

   The word salvation comes from the Greek word soteria.  Many simply define it as the ticket to Heaven.  Truly it is all that but it is so much more.  When one gets saved or born again their life is changed.  The word soteria is a powerful word containing attributes such as deliverance, preservation, safety and health.  The New Testament verifies these attributes in Scripture after Scripture.  It speaks not only of  eternal life when death has claimed or physical body but goes much deeper.

   Salvation means being delivered from the bondage of sin and free from the control of the devil here in this life.  Salvation sets you free.  When you receive salvation you are born again, a new creature in this life.  It means you have been grafted into the family of God and have come into a covenant relationship with God.  If and when you honor your side of the covenant with God then God’s promises are available to you.  How do you embrace those promises?

   2Co 1:20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.  If you will notice the Bible says that the promises of God are yea and Amen to those who are “in Him.”  It is not when we go our own way or do our own thing but when we begin to search God’s Word and find our His will for us in our lives and do what He says.  It comes from gaining knowledge of who God is and who we are in Him.  As that knowledge stirs our hearts and faith begins to rise in the confidence of our relationship with God that we stand on the Word in faith and refuse to waiver or turn aside.

   I hear many say “I’m just an old sinner saved by grace.”  That sound humble and we all need to be humble.  But consider this:  if you are saved by grace, you are no longer a sinner.  You have been redeemed and are now a new creature.  If you are saved then you give no place to the devil because you have submitted yourself to God.  Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

   There is only one way that you can  be saved and that is by grace and through faith in Jesus Christ and what He accomplished at Calvary.  Good works and high moral standards and membership in church are all worthy goals and should be sought by each of us but they are not the way to Heaven.

   It is by grace and it is through faith and it is by Jesus Christ.  Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.  Jesus shed His blood for you and gave His life on Calvary.  If you are saved, you are not a sinner.  Don’t dishonor God or His beloved Son by continuing to declare you are an old sinner.  That is like saying that His sacrifice was not enough or His grace was not sufficient.  IT WAS!  Honor Him by saying what the Bible says.  Ps 107:2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;