Faithfulness

There is an old Russian proverb that goes something like this:

The quality of a man's character is not defined by the intensity of his emotion,

but by its duration.

In our context, talking about Christianity, that translates (approximately) to this:

I don't care how much you love Jesus now if you don't love Him in a year.

God doesn't care about your religious pedigree. He cares about your current faithfulness. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to John the Baptizer, he said to them, "Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that our of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham..."

It didn't matter if one of those men or women were children of Abraham in the flesh, they needed to be children of Abraham in the spirit. Our justification as believers cannot and must not be separated from our sanctification, the "working out our salvation with fear and trembling" as Peter puts it so well. For too long, Christianity has sold salvation as a 'get out of hell free' card, like we are playing Monopoly with people's souls. Yes, we were justified once for all by the work of Jesus on the cross, but that statement makes no sense apart from transforming our lives to be like His. HE, Jesus, is the Truth - He is the standard against which we discern wether or not something is good or evil. We must be faithful to Him, even if it costs us our reputations, social status or livelihood.

Salvation is not a vaccination. You don't get one shot of Jesus and are then let loose to do as you please. Salvation is a continuing process. It is a daily crucifying of our sinful nature and conforming ourselves to the character of Jesus, as revealed in the Scriptures and illuminated by the Spirit. For "if we die with Him in a death like His, we will surely be raised with Him in a resurrection like His." Amen. This is the hope that that we confess - that Christ has died, Christ is risen and that Christ will come again! Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.