Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God is changing you into the person He wants you to be.”

Yesterday I told you the story of how at one point in my life I had an image of myself as a bodybuilder. I never got there. Actually, I never even came close, but I did have a picture in my head of what it would look like if it ever did happen.

It’s pretty common for people to have goals regarding what they want to achieve and the kind of person they want to become. That’s not a bad thing. But God also has an image of the kind of person He wants us to become, and He is in the process of bringing that to pass. And (here’s the really good news), God’s image of you is better than your image of you, and His plan is better than yours. This is what the sanctification process is all about. It’s about God changing you into the person He wants you to become.

In Philippians 1:6 Paul informs us that the One who started a good work in you will carry it on until it is completed in the day of Christ Jesus. The “good work” that He started in you began on the day you placed your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. That’s when He started changing you. The “carry it on” part is the process of sanctification. The “completion” happens on that day in eternity when your spirit is united with your resurrection body and you are finally the completed person you will be for the rest of eternity (we will talk more about that at the end of this series).

In Jeremiah 29:11 God assures us, “For I know the plans I have for you – this is the Lord’s declaration – plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” That good and perfect plan God is referring to works itself out over the course of your life and leads you to become the person He wants you to be.

Another image God frequently uses to help us understand what He is doing in our lives is the image of a potter forming clay into the shape he wants it to be. There are over 100 Bible verses that make reference to a potter shaping clay. Isaiah 64:8 is a good example, “Yet Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay and you are our potter; we all are the work of your hands.”

Sanctification is a very important part of your salvation. So much so, that we will spend a large part of the rest of this month exploring it. God will do His part to bring about your sanctification but you also must do your part. You have to cooperate with him. Again I recommend to you Richard Foster’s very helpful book “The Celebration of Discipline”. There’s a lot we can do in our daily lives to cooperate with God as He molds us and shapes us into the people He wants us to be.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Philippians 2:12 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “You have to work out your salvation.”

In my twenties and thirties I was a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not “The Terminator” Arnold, but the “Mr. America” Arnold, the body builder. I wanted to be a body builder too. I wanted to have 20 inch biceps and be able to bench press small automobiles.

I had a copy of Arnold’s book “The Education of a Body Builder”. It was filled with suggested workout routines and lots of pictures. I had an image in my mind of what I wanted to be like, and I had a plan to follow to help me get there. Well, I never even came close to Arnold’s stature but for about ten years I was kind of pumped-up and muscular. (Linda tells me I was more of a muscle-head than a muscle-man but sometimes she gets mean like that.)

In Philippians 2:12 the Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of working out and building up, and he applies it to the process of sanctification. Here Paul tells us that we have to “work-out” our salvation. He does not say that we have to “work for” our salvation, we’ve already addressed that issue – salvation is by grace not by works. But he does say we must “work out” our salvation. By that Paul means the same thing Arnold did. If you want big muscles, a big physical stature, you have to do your exercises. Likewise, if you want a big spiritual stature you have to do your exercises – you have to do the things that will help you to grow.

This second stage of the salvation process, the stage the Bible and theologians refer to as “sanctification” is a growing period. It is the time when we are supposed to be learning, changing, and slowly becoming more and more like Jesus.

Once upon a time, earlier in life, I wanted to become more and more like Arnold in physical stature. Now I realize it would be much better to become more and more like Jesus in spiritual stature. That’s what the process of sanctification accomplishes for us. Our exercises for this spiritual development include things like daily prayer and Bible study, worship, full participation in a good church family, acts of service to those in need, good stewardship, and the other basic disciplines of the Christian life.

When I was trying to grow physically I relied on Arnold’s book “The Education of a Body Builder” as a guide. If you would like a great book to guide you in learning and applying the basic disciplines of the Christian life I can think of none better (after the Bible itself) than Richard Foster’s classic work “The Celebration of Discipline”. I think you would find it very helpful in guiding and accelerating your spiritual growth.

I encourage you, as part of your daily routine, to “work out” your salvation.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy …” 1 Corinthians 1:2 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Your salvation should change how you live.”

The first stage of the salvation process was the actual moment of placing your faith in Christ and having your sins forgiven. Although that decision may have taken a long time to arrive at, the actual moment of forgiveness, and the consequent new birth, happened in a moment, in a flash.

The second stage involves all the rest of your life and it is the stage of salvation that Christians struggle with the most. This is where you live-out what is already true of you. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 the Apostle Paul wrote about the new birth, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Now that you are a new creation you should live your life in a new way. What has happened inside of you should cause a change in how you live.

However the change is not instantaneous. Instead it occurs slowly and progressively over a lifetime. This is the part of the salvation process known as “sanctification”. “Sanctification” is a big fifty-cent theological word that simply means “To make holy. To dedicate, consecrate, and set-apart for a divine purpose.”

That’s you. Now that you belong to Christ you have been set-apart, dedicated, and consecrated for His divine purposes. You are in the process of being transformed from the person you were into someone who is holy and who reflects the attributes of Christ. This is what Paul was referring to in 1 Corinthians 1:2 when he reminded the Corinthians that as Christians they had been sanctified – they had been set-apart, dedicated, and consecrated, and then they were called to live holy lives.

That was true of them and it is to be true of us too. Your salvation will be perfected and complete in eternity. But between the moment of forgiveness, when you placed your faith in Christ, and your eventual perfection, once you are in heaven and you are the person you will be for eternity, there is this long process of transformation as you progressively become more and more like Jesus. That’s the life of the Christian.

In the days to come we will talk more about what the actual process of sanctification consists of, and why it is so important.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?” Romans 6:1 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Don’t live in cheap grace.”

In one of his songs the singer Jimmy Buffett has a lyric that has become famous over the years. It goes, “Oh there’s a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning!” He’s referring to those who live like the devil all week long but then sing like a saint on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we all know the type. In fact far too many Christians are the type.

In 1937 the great German theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer published one of the most important Christian books of that era. The title was “The Cost of Discipleship”. In that work Bonheoffer introduced us to the concept of “cheap grace.” He wrote:

“Cheap grace is preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ ….”

“Grace” is the undeserved blessings of God freely bestowed upon us by a loving and merciful God. Applied to salvation the grace of God is what saves us even though we don’t deserve to be saved. Salvation is the ultimate expression of God’s grace, and it is also by God’s grace that we remain saved no matter what. “Once saved always saved” is true only because of the grace of God.

But that truth often creates a problem, this is where “cheap grace” comes from. Cheap grace is what Paul was writing about in Romans chapter six. People can be tempted to conclude that since they are saved, and since they can never lose their salvation, they can live any way they want and still go to heaven. That’s a gross cheapening of grace and it’s the problem both Paul and Bonheoffer attempted to correct. It’s also an issue that we will address in our consideration of this second stage of the salvation process.

Now that you are saved, and since you can never lose your salvation, are you therefore free to just party hearty for the rest of your life? Does it really matter how you live?

The answer is “yes” it sure does, and we will now spend a few days exploring the issue of why it does matter so very much.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:27-28 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “You cannot lose your salvation.”

“Once saved, always saved”. That neat little phrase captures the essence of an important Biblical doctrine known as “the security of the believer”. The doctrine of the security of the believer teaches that once you have made a sincere profession of faith in Jesus Christ for the salvation of your sins, you are saved and nothing can ever change that.

Some people struggle with this. What if you don’t “act” as if you’re saved? What if you claim to be a Christian but then you act like the devil? Or, what if you really were saved at one time but then you kick the dog, steal your neighbor’s newspaper, cheat on your wife, or even murder someone? Are you still saved then? Those are good questions.

In John 10:27-28 Jesus made it clear that if you really are one of His followers (if you ever made a genuine profession of faith to trust Him for the forgiveness of your sins), then you belong to Him, you have eternal life, and you will never perish. Additionally, just for emphasis, He emphatically states that no one (read Satan) will ever snatch you out of His hand.

Please note that Jesus made no mention there as to whether or not you are a good and obedient little sheep. He seemed to be referring even to the black sheep of the family. That passage teaches that f you really are His then you belong to Him for all eternity and nothing will ever change that. Here’s another one. In Romans 8:38 the Apostle Paul wrote:

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul ran out of words and rhetorical devices in his effort to explain that if you belong to God then there is nothing in all creation, nothing in the physical world or the spiritual world, no angel or demon nor anything else that can ever separate you from God. That, by the way, would include your bad behavior. “Nothing” in all creation can separate you from God once you are His.

The Biblical doctrine of the security of the believer is important and therefore it’s a subject God devoted a lot of ink to in the Bible. There is much more than we can adequately cover in a single devotional message, therefore we will continue this discussion tomorrow.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “In the same way, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” Matthew 18:14 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God is even more concerned about your salvation than you are.”

When it comes to having a sense of security about salvation the two most common questions people have are “Am I really saved?” and “Can I lose my salvation?” The answer to the second question is a lot easier than the answer to the first. We’ll come back to the issue of whether or not you can lose your salvation tomorrow but first, let’s be sure you really are saved.

Only you and God can know for sure if you really are saved. However, I can offer you some insights that you may find helpful. First of all, as Jesus taught in Matthew 18:14, it is not God’s desire for anyone to be lost. That’s the starting place for this discussion. God does not want anyone to be separated from Him for eternity. The Bible, from start to finish, is all about salvation. It’s about God drawing people to Himself. Matthew 18:14 is just one of the many places where Jesus helps us to understand the heart of the Father about this. God is even more concerned about your salvation than you are.

Second, it is the job of the Holy Spirit to draw people to faith in Christ so they can be saved. That is one of His primary roles on earth. “When he (the Holy Spirit) comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment.” (John 16:8). And, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13).

There are other verses that teach the same lesson about the role of the Spirit in drawing people to Jesus, but I think you get the point. All throughout your life the Holy Spirit works to create opportunities for you to be exposed to the truth of the Gospel, and He creates situations that help you to appreciate your need for a Savior – all to draw you to faith in Jesus. This is a direct result of the Father’s desire that none be lost. This doesn’t mean that all will be saved, but it does mean that the Father wants all to have the opportunity to place their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

God wants your salvation even more than you do. Therefore if you have ever had that moment in time (as we discussed in yesterday’s devotional), when you made a sincere profession of faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, then you are saved. God loves you and He wants you in heaven with Him. He sent His Son Jesus to pay the penalty for your sins, and then He sent the Holy Spirit to draw you to faith in Jesus. So if your profession of faith was sincere then you are saved.

Now the question is whether or not you can lose your salvation once you have it. We will discuss that tomorrow.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again.” John 3:6-7 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Salvation occurs in a moment when a decision is made.”

Nicodemus was intrigued and confused. He was a trained religious professional, a Pharisee who had spent years upon years studying the Old Testament Scriptures and he knew his stuff. Or so he thought.

But along came Jesus and Nicodemus realized there was an important element in his relationship with God that he had somehow missed. He knew that somehow, in some way, Jesus was the answer. So he came to Jesus secretly, at night so nobody would see him, and he asked Jesus to help him discover what he was missing in his relationship with God.

John 3:7 was the answer. “You must be born again”.

All of us are born once, physically. But in order to be alive spiritually we must be born again. At the time He creates us God breathes a living spirit into us and gives us the breath of life (Genesis 2:7; Job 33:4). But in the spiritual sense that Jesus was teaching about in John 3:6-7, that spirit is actually not alive in a relationship with God. Paul teaches this in Ephesians 2:1 when he writes that before salvation “… you were dead in your trespasses and sins …”

The spirit within you was a dead thing that could never be allowed into heaven. It was contaminated with sin and it was dead to God. Thus, the new birth Jesus spoke of. The dead spirit must be born again with new life. Jesus then went on in John 3:16-18 to explain that the new birth occurs in a moment of time when a decision is made to place your faith in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life …”

The Apostle Paul expanded on this teaching about the new birth when he wrote in Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And also in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come.”

When it comes to being “born again”, salvation is a one-time event. It happens in a moment of time because of a decision you make to place your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins – and you never need to repeat the experience. Salvation is permanent. You cannot lose it and you never need to repeat it. This is often referred to as “once saved always saved” or, “the security of the believer.”

Tomorrow we will consider the doctrine of “the security of the believer” and I will help you to see that once you are saved, you are always saved.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:-8-9 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Salvation is a free gift which you must simply accept”

Martin Luther was a Catholic priest and monk in the 1500s in Germany. He is remembered mostly for two reasons. First, he was one of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation. He was perhaps the most influential figure in moving Christians away from the Catholic Church and into a more Bible-centric, faith-based practice of Christianity.

The other thing Luther is remembered for is his personal discovery and subsequent teaching that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ, and not by works. However this was not a new revelation from God. The Apostle Paul had written about it 1500 years earlier in Romans 1:17 and again in Ephesians 2:8-9. Unfortunately, shortly after the time of Paul, the Christian faith moved into an era of works-based salvation. The Catholic Church became the dominant expression of the Christian faith and they taught a strict doctrine of salvation by obeying the rules, participating in the rituals, and giving money.

Luther himself was terrified of the holiness and righteousness of a God who seemed impossible to please. He prayed eight times a day. He sometimes spent six hours a day confessing his sins to another priest. He fasted multiple times each week. He often slept without blankets, even in the winter, because he considered himself too sinful to deserve the pleasure of blankets. He once ascended a high staircase on his knees, pausing at each step to pray a prayer of confession and to beg God’s forgiveness. And yet, Luther was miserable. No matter how much he repented he still felt guilty.

Finally one day in Bible study and prayer Luther had an epiphany. The Holy Spirit opened his mind to the great truth of Romans 1:17, that the righteous live by faith, and that as Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches, our salvation comes as a result of the grace of God by means of faith in His son, and not from any works that we perform. It is a free gift and can only be received by an act of faith.

It was the most revealing and liberating truth Luther had ever experienced. And it changed everything. In that moment Luther realized he did not need to earn his salvation. In fact, there was nothing he could do to earn it – he had already discovered that through many years of fruitless effort.

You cannot earn salvation, you cannot purchase it, and you will never be good enough to deserve it. It is the free gift of God, simply as a matter of his amazing grace, and it comes only through faith in His Son Jesus.

Tomorrow we will explore this great truth further. We will talk about the element of salvation that is a one-time event and which begins in a moment of decision.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Understanding Salvation”

Our Bible verse for today: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike are worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The human race is as sinful today as it has ever been.”

As I noted in the first devotional message in this series, salvation is three stage process that unfolds over time. It is a one-time event, and it is an ongoing process, and it is a future promise. Throughout the month we will work through the process sequentially, beginning with the one-time event which is the moment in which your sins are forgiven, and then we will follow it forward all the way into eternity.

Before we go any further though, I want to be sure we understand how bad sin is, and how much it continues to impact the world today. In Romans 3:10-12 the Apostle Paul made it clear that there isn’t a single individual on earth who can stand righteous before God apart from Christ. That was true then and it continues to be true today. Paul went on in that passage, “Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:13-18

Things are no better today than when Paul wrote those words, and in fact they are probably worse. In his book “The Doctrine of Salvation” Dr. Darrell Robinson cites a study conducted by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with historians from England, Egypt, Germany, and India. The study was intended to explore whether or not the character of the human race has improved much as civilization has advanced. They discovered that it really hasn’t. At one point they wrote:

“Since 3600 B.C. the world has known only 292 years of peace. There have been 14,531 wars, large and small, in which 3,640,000,000 people have been killed.” That’s 3.5 billion people killed just in wars. And that’s just deaths in wars. That particular passage makes no mention of all the pain and suffering inflicted by murder, manslaughter, rape, domestic violence, burglary, fraud, sex trafficking, child abuse or any of the host of other crimes that continue to plague mankind.

As much as the world has advanced in terms of science, technology, and standard of living, people are as evil and as lost in their sins today as they have ever been. And everyone still needs Jesus. Tomorrow we will consider the one and only thing a person can do to receive salvation and to begin a process of true spiritual transformation.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is: