For God so loved the world that He
gave… —John 3:16
Salvation does not mean merely deliverance
from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from
God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect
union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being
delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much
more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with
the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to
God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself.
To say that we are called to preach holiness
or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus
Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). The fact that He saves from sin and makes
us holy is actually part of the effect of His wonderful and total surrender to
us.
If we are truly surrendered, we will never be
aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be
consumed with the One to whom we surrender. Beware of talking about surrender
if you know nothing about it. In fact, you will never know anything about it
until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and
absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God
in the same way He gave Himself for us— totally, unconditionally, and without
reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender
will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with
Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment