Salvation As A Lifestyle

Scripture: 1 John 5:11-12 (ESV) ¹¹ And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Meditation: What is salvation? If you asked many Christians that you would get an answer like ‘Salvation is having faith in Jesus to save you from your sins’. But I have a feeling that Jesus would say that it is something more than just a mental assent to Jesus being the Savior. For example the scripture verse above seems to indicate that eternal life is something that is lived through Jesus. Not merely some mental picture of Jesus dying on a cross to save us from our sins. Although it is that, but I believe that salvation is so much more. Salvation is a way of life for Christians to live out daily.

            Somehow, modern Christianity seems to have disconnected the idea of salvation from its practical everyday effect on how Christians should live in the world. The fact modern Christians think of bringing Christ into the workplace or into the home shows, I believe just how far removed from the original meaning of salvation we have gotten.

            In the early church the idea that you could believe in Jesus for your salvation and live without any reference to him in your daily life was simply unknown. The early church is replete with stories of how people even gave up their careers as soldiers and actors because they could not square their jobs with the demands of the gospel. Today we would say someone like that had become unbalanced and was going overboard in their faith. But to 1^st Century Christians this was the norm not the exception.

            You may say this sounds like salvation by works. But you’d be wrong. Even Martin Luther in his preface to the commentary on Romans asserts that “it is impossible to separate works from faith—yea, just as impossible as to separate burning and shining from a fire.” Wow, we are saved by faith through grace, but it looks like there is something else going on here as well. We are all familiar with James’ declaration that “faith without works is dead” apparently Luther was just as adamant that salvation is not just an idea but a lifestyle.

            Think about the fire analogy for a moment. For a moment think of pieces of wood lying on a grate in a fireplace cold and dark. Then we apply a flame to one of the logs slowly it catches fire and it changes. The cold dead wood had the potential to become a light and heat giving fire but it was just potential. So it is when Christ comes into our lives. We become kindled into a burning fire. As a fire in a fireplace spreads from log to log, so a Christian who has been lit by the saving fire of Christ spreads salvation from person to person causing each to glow with the heat and light of Christ in a cold, dark, and lonely world.

            I know this may take a while to digest in our lukewarm Christian world, but Jesus needs us now more than ever to live the salvation life. He needs us to set our world on fire for him in new and beautiful ways. Let us pray that our burning for Christ will start soon and last until we die and go on to be on fire for Christ in Glory. Amen.