Living Out Our Salvation

Today I received a thought: 'Live not like you need to be saved, but live as you already have been."

What does that look like? I imagine it like a prisoner being interviewed for parole. The man who wants to be saved, keeps trying to explain himself. He lists all these things that should qualify him; good behaviour, his 'changed' character, his repentance and his decision to be a reformed man. Whilst all these things are great, the examiner of the correctional facility can still decline his application because whilst the man has turned against his ways, he has still committed the crime that has placed him in that prison. In result, he is a man who possesses a tarnished record even if his character is completely changed from that of the past. Freedom belongs to those free of crime, and as a man who has already committed a crime, he cannot choose to be free but can only be chosen to be granted freedom.

A hypothetical second man has been told that he has already been granted his freedom. He however still has to attend an evaluation. How do you suppose this man would act? He may try to state some of his good deeds, or perhaps he is still a horrible person and is against all reform of his character but he does not care about his evaluation. He does not need to explain himself for he is already free.

We are like this second man. All of us have committed the crime of sin that has called for our rightful punishment of death. Too often we try to buy our salvation, doing good deeds so that we might be saved. That is not how grace works. Grace has given the worst man a chance to simply accept salvation, and a righteous man to accept salvation. They can only accept it but never can they earn it. Of course, once we are free we can choose to not change and throw ourselves back into the prison, but that is not the life God wants us to live.

There is a difference between this second man and the true nature of God's grace. Grace is not a mere parole but a completely new record. We sin, and grace cleans us over and over. We do good, but that does not clean our slate. We ought to do things not to clean our slate, for what reason is there to clean a slate that is already sanctified forever by the death of Jesus Christ? We should live as a man who is already saved, who does not have to meet a certain criteria for salvation. This does not mean a continued sinning life, for our grace is granted through our faith and belief in God. If you truly believed in God, you would know that sinning is like deliberately taking his grace for granted and we are being arrogant.

God loves us. If we are people who have already been saved, we act not to earn our salvation but out of the love that comes from our newborn character. Our occasional mistakes are cleaned off by the depths of God's endless mercy, and our good deeds are our gifts to God because we love Him. Do not be good because you believe that gives you entrance to heaven. Be good because you don't belong in that prison; we are free to do the good purely because we want to forever.