WHAT SALVATION SHOULD MEAN TO US.

        Just what should salvation mean to a Christian? This is a question which today seems to have too many answers. While it is true that the salvation experience is unique to each individual Christian, there is one unifying truth that joins all Believers, The Gift.

         Most Christians realize that salvation is a gift given to us from God. What many Christians fail to realize, however, is how great a gift has been given to us and just what that gift should mean to someone who has accepted it.

         What is a gift? With the world the way it is today people have forgotten what a gift truly is. The attitude today is that you never get something for nothing. People believe that if someone gives them a gift they owe the giver something, and today the giver usually is expecting something in return. When something is given with this attitude it is not a gift but a favor. A favor is something that should be returned out of kindness, while when giving a favor one should not do so expecting it to be returned, but if it is returned one should graciously accept. A gift on the other hand is something which is given freely, that is, given without expecting or warranting anything in return. Salvation is a gift. Romans 5:14-21 and Ephesians 2:8 tell us that it is a free gift and that all we have to do is accept it to make it ours. No amount of works can ever gain us salvation. One might say that by having to confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior publicly is, in fact, earning salvation but I believe that this is merely acknowledging the fact that one has accepted the gift.

         One problem which I see today among Christians is that they treat salvation more as a favor than a gift. The gift of salvation no longer receives the respect due it. Salvation should receive the same respect which is due any gift. A good example of this respect was shown to me by a good friend of mine. My friend and I often played golf together and like many people when having a run of bad luck my friend would become frustrated and loose his temper. Unlike many other golfers I have seen, my friend would not throw his clubs through the air or beat them on the ground. When he would become angry he would simply place his club back in his golf bag and look at me and say "If these clubs weren,t a gift I would break everyone of them." The truth is that I believe that he would have broken at least one of them, but since they were a gift he did not feel he had the right to damage them. His golf clubs were not expensive or special in the way that they were made but by the way he treated them one would believe that they were worth a million dollars. It was the gift that he respected. This is the same kind of respect that a youth would give a special gift given them by their grandparent. Such as a young boy's first pocket knife that is given him by his grandfather. Even if that pocket knife was an old one that had been used for many years you would not find many boys who would trade it for a new one. If we are capable of paying so much respect to such a small gifts, then why does salvation receive so little respect. Could it be that Christians do not realize just how special a gift salvation is or what it took for God to allow His Son to endure what he had to endure or for Christ to take on the burden He took on just so we may have eternal life.

         How well do Christians understand what happened on the cross that day when Christ died? How well do Christians understand what had to happen before salvation could come to mankind? We as Christians understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the grave on the third day so that we might be saved. If one does not believe his, then he is not a Christian. We also understand that Christ suffered tremendous physical pain on the cross and that the scorn and public ridicule caused much grief in His heart. But when Christ prayed that day in the garden at Gethsemine for the Father to allow the cup to be taken from Him, He was not referring to these pains.

         While Jesus Christ walked upon the earth He never knew sin. He was tempted in every way that you and I have ever been tempted, yet He never committed a sin. For if He had committed sin, then His death on the cross would have been for nothing. Christ's sinless life, though, is not what brought salvation to man, nor was it the death of a sinless man. For salvation to be brought to man, man's sin itself had to be removed. The only way in which sin can be destroyed is through death and it is for that reason that death was brought to the earth. So for our sins to be removed from us they had to be taken to the grave by someone other that ourselves. This someone is Jesus Christ.

         Now we know that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that He took our sins with Him on the cross when he died. But do we truly understand what a burden it must have been for Him to have the sins of the world cast upon Himself. When Christ died upon the cross He bore all the sins of the world upon Himself. To help understand what this was like start by thinking of the worst sin you have ever committed. Remember how terrible it made you feel, not wanting to even ask God for forgiveness because you were too ashamed to even talk to Him. (When we commit a sin we often feel this way though we know that God will forgive us and that He still loves us no matter what.) Now think of feeling this way for every single sin we have ever committed all at one time. It's not a pleasant thought. Now think of experiencing this ten times or even one hundred times. For most people this would be too much to bare and remain sane. If you can imagine even some of this you have only felt a sliver of what Christ felt when he died upon the cross. How disgusting and filthy Christ must have felt to experience that much sin since He had never known sin. It is written in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Christ actually became sin that day.

         There are many people who could have endured the physical pain that Jesus endured that day. There are others who could have endured the mocking and scoffing also, but no other person could have endured the burden of becoming the sin of the entire world except Jesus Christ. Even as hard as it was for Christ to accept that burden He did so willingly because He loved us so. But imagine what a sacrifice it was for the Father to send His only Son to bare that burden. It is much, much harder for a person to put a burden on their child than to take it themselves. So, when thinking of how heavy a burden Christ endured for us, imagine how much greater the burden was for the Father. Now that we have an understanding of just how great a gift God gave us when He sent His Son to die for our sins, and the love He must have for us to have offered us such a gift knowing that many would not accept, do we not owe more respect for that gift and to God for giving us that gift.