“I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (Philippians 3:10-11 NLT)
Foremost we are saved for intimacy with our Savior. What does that mean? Sin separates us from the Lord and from all that is holy and righteous. Knowing Jesus unites us with Him and fills us with His Holy Spirit who sets us apart for sacred service and empowers us to live righteously. None of that is possible without a relationship with Jesus, but unless and until we understand that salvation isn’t just about enabling us to escape hell and get to heaven, we’ll never really understand why we’re saved.
In some ways it’s like beginning a new job or school. We can’t know how it will change our life, through the new people we’ll meet and the new opportunities we’ll experience; the new things we’ll learn and how it will shape our life in ways we never realized existed. Similarly, there is a process in growing in our relationship with the Lord that unfolds over time, but the process doesn’t happen accidentally, it must be an intentional pursuit of what God is calling us to.
Thinking about Salvation there are three major categories that come to mind. First, Wholeness that includes purity. What is “wholeness”? Wholeness in Jesus is essentially completeness as a human being. Without the Lord Jesus we are divided and incomplete; torn in our loyalties and fragmented in our efforts to find life and health in our lives. Sin separates us from God and from one another causing us to look in all the wrong places to find peace, hope, harmony, satisfaction, forgiveness – in short, wholeness.
When we open our lives to the Lord Jesus, He completes us, in the sense, He brings harmony to our lives. He gives us a purpose we never had; He forgives us and sets us on a mission we never knew existed; He empowers us by His Spirit to see our whole life in new and life-transforming ways; but most importantly, He opens to us a whole new dimension of relationship with Himself.
That relates to the second, but central reason we’re saved: Intimacy with the Lord Jesus and with our heavenly Father. Please don’t confuse intimacy with sex. While sex is certainly an intimate act, on many levels it doesn’t and can’t compare with the intimacy we can have with the Lord. It’s what Paul was describing in the verses above. It’s a closeness that is beyond human understanding and can’t be attained apart from a relationship with the Creator.
It’s a oneness of mind, heart, and purpose that leads to an intentional and growing desire to please God more than we want to please ourselves. Intimacy with the Lord will free us from our bondage to selfishness and sin because we find more pleasure in submitting to His authority and following His directives than accomplishing our own evil desires.
Then, thirdly, we’re saved for Fruitfulness in reaching those in our spheres of influence for Jesus. Fruitfulness, however, entails far more than giftedness or even outreach to others but is the means whereby reaching our lost loved ones and friends becomes possible. Fruitfulness begins with the formation of godly disciplines like prayer, reading/studying/memorizing Scripture, faithfulness in serving others in and through the Church, finding community with other like-minded believers, and sharing what we’re learning with others in our spheres of influence.
Obviously, this is just scratching the surface but hopefully can broaden our understanding, enabling us to see that our walk with Jesus is much more than a free ticket to heaven.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 