Episode 279: I’m Talkin. . .Salvation

I’m talking episode 279 for August 20th, 2023.

This is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week, we’re talking salvation.

I thought it interesting that 279 episodes into my little microcast that I had never done the word salvation before.

And this is a little more difficult word, so I wanted to start out with a definition, actually a couple definitions.

And the first one that I saw is preservation or deliverance from harm.

And I think that is the definition that the world sees.

And even us as Christians, that still holds truth.

But then the dictionary adds, for those who call themselves Christians, the deliverance from consequences of sin.

And I think that is semi-accurate, and I’ll explain that a little bit later.

Salvation is a positive word, and I think over the last few microcasts, I’ve been on positive words that rarely have a negative side.

And I think salvation lies in that same context.

And I think of things that we are saved from, or stories that you hear of people being saved.

And you think of just natural events of the recent past with the fires in Hawaii, and stories of people who were rescued or saved from that, basically preserved from harm.

And you think of those who weren’t, and how desperate that is for family members and close friends, and how sad that is for the rest of us who are watching that tragedy.

But there are other things that happen.

A big storm coming in this weekend to Southern California, and so you think of other natural disasters and people being saved from those.

And then you think of pets and firemen saving cats out of trees and things like that.

And the one thing that is true about this type of preservation from harm, and the word salvation as the world sees it, is it’s always temporary and needs to be repeated.

And therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

So my real struggle with the dictionary definition of deliverance from the consequences of sin is that in the temporary that we live in on our way to the eternal, there are consequences of our sin that we absolutely have to deal with.

Even as Christians, we know we aren’t perfect, and we know we sin, and we know that there are consequences that come from those actions where we choose not to follow God.

But in the overarching picture, in the greater thought of eternity, the consequences of sin is death, and that’s what the Bible teaches.

And that’s why Christ had to die for us.

That’s why he took our sin upon him and had to die, because the only way to conquer sin is by conquering death.

Sin is terminal.

And so, the actual forever consequence of sin is taken up by salvation, by what Christ did on the cross for us.

He overcame death.

He gave us eternal life.

And while that is so positive, and that is what we live for as Christians, the sad part of that is that not everybody takes advantage of that.

Not everybody in the world is going to heaven.

There are people who will reject salvation.

And it’s odd to think that way, because in the midst of disasters, natural or otherwise, in the midst of potential harm, no one, no one turns away salvation.

Everybody gets in the boat.

Everybody gets in the helicopter.

Everybody accepts the help of firemen, of policemen.

Nobody says, no, that’s okay.

I’d rather be harmed.

But in the case of salvation from the final consequences of sin, people reject it all the time.

And that is sad for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

And we need to make sure that we are living to glorify God, that we shine his light in a dark world, so that those who come to the realization that they are a sinner in need of a Savior, that gives us the opportunity to share the good news of the cross where Jesus died, and of the grave that he conquered, and the life that he lived, so that we could spend eternity with him.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast.