Our Eternal Home

Many people understand salvation as being the place where one ends up at after death. They believe that if some eternal scale ends up weighted in their favor they will go to heaven. Religion then is the effort to tilt one's fate toward a favorable location. Life is a journey. You are either walking away from God (or Heaven), or toward Him. Thus they believe that when you have made a commitment to follow Jesus you have stopped walking in a negative direction and are headed to a positive one, hopefully earning enough points along the way to pay for your heavenly ticket.

Well, there is a place that we know as Heaven, and God does reside there, but the problem with the above view is that salvation is not a pie-in-the-sky hope for a peaceful resting place type of thing. The tendency of man always has been to "show me the rules and tell me what I need to do".  But that viewpoint, that attitude, is actually the outcome of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil through which Adam sinned. Instead of relying on the direction of the Holy Spirit we want knowledge and religion to point us toward actions that will balance things our way because we can then outwardly work toward the goal of Heaven while inwardly remaining the lord of our own lives.

The suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus was not done to create bonus points that would outscore sin. It was done so that Jesus, who was truly God, present with the Father from the beginning, but also truly man, would have a glorified human spirit. This Spirit of Christ could now unite with our dead spirit so that two things that were separate (His Spirit and our spirit) would unite (as do sperm and egg at conception) so that our spirit could become a new creation. 

The confession of our sins to God and our request for Jesus to forgive those sins and to live in our hearts is much more than an intellectual decision to follow Christ and to walk the right path. It is not a sacred religious act designed to earn value. Rather it is our admission that we cannot be justified by our own efforts and our surrender to Jesus to be the Lord of our lives.

Salvation then is becoming part of God's family through the new birth of our spirits. When this happens the Holy Spirit, now residing in our spirit, ministers light and truth to our souls. And many things change at this point because our interests and desires and the way we view things become more Christ-like. We have salvation because our spirits are new, and although this almost always results in the process of our souls being renewed we still retain a streak of rebellion in our souls. 

This rebellion (sin) does not nullify our salvation. Sin does not kill our spirit again. We will not be eternally flip-flopping in and out of being a child of God. That is because although we say that salvation is a free gift from God, that there is nothing we can do to earn or deserve it, we must remember that our lives are no longer ours. Our life now belongs to God. 

The gift is free, but by accepting the gift we surrender all. When we sin as a believer we are hurting our fellowship with God but are not changing our relationship. The desire of a believer, because of relationship and fellowship, is to be where the Father and the Son are.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious that gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:3-9)