Seize the Moments - Vol 1  Day 10  Married or Just Engaged

We are often told in preaching the way of salvation, the facts of the cross, the facts of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, the facts of our sinfulness and the facts of our need for a savior and even given a sample prayer that we can pray to receive Jesus as if it were a formula.  All of this can be done in an intellectual way.  It can be done in the mind without ever resulting in salvation.  Salvation comes only from a marital commitment, a commitment of the entire being, a capitulation as it were of one's will to the will of another.  Just as in marriage, when two people are betrothed to each other, it is a commitment to put each other's needs and desires ahead of their own.  Marriages which continue to do that thrive and flourish.  Marriages which lapse into selfish pursuits and demanding from the other things that we want for ourselves, generally end in divorce (if not legally, emotionally).  

You may have experienced separation and divorce in numerous relationships from friends or family or even a spouse.  The bottom line for us in the salvation paradigm (experience) is that salvation only occurs at the point in time when one is willing to do as the rich young ruler before Jesus was not willing to do.  I must give up all I have, forsaking all that I am, and abandon myself in full marital commitment to  Jesus.  In other words I must forsake my own agenda and pursuit of personal affirmation.  Then and only then will salvation truly occur as I experience the new birth.  The new birth then gives me a whole new agenda.  It is my lover’s (God’s) agenda.  No longer will I live from my own common sense or my own training or my own human desire. 

God wants people who will express Himself throughout the world.  He wants you and me to be fully His.  He wants us to receive his salvation by letting our lives, reputation and all, be fully at His beck and call.

      -- JB    ref.   Matthew 19:16-24;