Monday, April 2, 2007

Who is Saved

It's Raining,
I like it, I cannot see rain and not think of Gods Grace,

The Grace that God extends to all. As I look out over lake Michigan, the sky and lake melding as one on the horizon in a gray blue haze, I am also reminded that the Religious community today has melded together with the secular world to make Christianity a pot of luke warm spit.

It is vogue in many churches to chastise Believing or Confessing Christians as non-Inclusive Bigots and to be reprimanded as not fallowing the walk of Jesus. Imagine that a church that doesn't believe or preach salvation saying your not showing the Love of Jesus!

As a Saved Christian who loves Lutheran Liturgy, I get a little excited when people call them selves Christians and yet do not take the whole of Christ. They accuse us of cherry picking scripture as they cherry pick scripture. :) And yet

What of the new to Christ believers? what of them? DO we scare them off with the HARD TRUTH? or do we nurse them along weaning them from the secular world and into discipleship?

Who is saved and who is condemned?
Is a baptized Lutheran who recites the creeds and believes them but who runs out of church and never does good works, Is he/she saved?
OR is it a baptized Lutheran who recites the creeds and believes them and does good works out of love for the Father Is he saved?

Or is it the Christian who lives the creed, Lives for Christ Jesus and follows the WAY and yet stumbles into sin occasionally, Is he saved?

What do you think?
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1 comment:

Jo said...

Excellent- this has blessed me, your site, and how refreshing to find a person with a good mind seeking Christ, and who also gets vexed with the ludricous idea (and tragic idea) that Jesus was just a nice guy and Christians that adhere to a narrow path are somehow not "true followers" of Him.

But on to this posting- it is mysterious and I think important to remember when discuss salvation, how those whom Jesus gives to the Father (His sheep, His own, the saved) know His voice. This is a good indicator of a person's faith. And though they (new Christians) are vulnerable and in need of discipling, I think that if their salvation has fallen on "good soil" (Matthew 13:18-23), they will obey His commandments, live the Creed as you said, and will do so out of love, because they are producing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Those are the saved. The saved exhibit the fruits, the saved have God-drenched minds like King David, but like King David, also stumble when the look away from Him. Like Peter walking on the water when he took his eyes off Christ. The saved see things that others don't see...their eyes are opened and they understand the Scriptures.
But I think it's important to remember that at the end of the day, God is the one who judges the heart and only He can know who is really His. I'm not saying that very tiresome idea that gets carelessly thrown about these days that "we shouldn't judge" because we have to judge as Christians; we have to know right from wrong. But rather that it's more important to love, to instruct, to guide the new Christians than to try to speculate as to whether or not they are truly saved. Jesus said the harvest is ripe; there are plenty to be gathered.
I tend to agree with your second choice there- of those that live the Creed and occassionally stumble as saved because, of course we as Christians will stumble, as Apostle Paul pointed out in Romans 7:14-24. We do as we don't want to; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. This humbling aspect of Christianity reminds us constantly that only One could live up to the law and perfect love and obedience, and that only He is able to keep us from falling (Jude 1:24).
I think it's comforting to know that for those people who truly continue to fight the "good fight" (through God's Grace of course); not giving into sin but always fighting it, will be given great rest and victory, the final victory, over that sin someday (yet even now can the Christian not find and enter into Christ's rest?). Even a sin that they took to their grave, that they never got over in life. There's no way Christ won't take the final victory and make things right someday.

I love spending time thinking and philosophizing on the mysterious and wonderful concept of salvation. I love that there's only one way and I love the Man that is that Way and that fulfilled every jot and tittle along that Way, and I'm glad that somebody could do it because none of us can. Recently I revisited the Sermon on the Mount, and instead of reading and stumbling on the hardness of it, I experienced joy and thankfulness for the very fact that I knew I could never live up to the commands in it. Because then and only then do I need Christ.
Thanks for giving me a place to indulge my ramblings- I really appreciate your site. I'm a Reformed Presbyterian, raised Southern Baptist, and engaged to a Lutheran. I think your website could be a very useful tool for us. It's hard to know what you'll get online, but I too am Solo Gracia, Solo Fide, Solo Scriptura. God bless to you and your ministry.

June 25, 2008 at 4:43 PM

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