What Must I Do to be Saved?

"When you were dead in your sins...God made you alive with Christ" (Colossians 2:13)

I admit it--I am a control freak. The Lord has been working on this area of my heart for years, and I'm sure He will be working on it until the day I die.

A few days ago, as I was driving and listening to a sermon on the Christian radio station, God revealed something to me about salvation that I have been fogetting lately. Yes, my head knows the process of salvation, but my heart has been missing one very powerful point.

When Jesus cried out on the cross, "It is finished!" he used language that implies "Your sin is paid in full." There is nothing that we can bring to Jesus to complete the act of redemption that He performed on Calvary.

I have heard a number of speakers use terminology leading people to believe that they have to bring something of value to the cross of Jesus. They must bring a commitment to follow Jesus, a heart ready to live for Him all their days. But is this salvation? I don't think so. The only thing we bring to the salvation process is our brokenness and the filth of our sins. If we do not come empty, how then can we be filled with the grace of the Lord Jesus?

Commitment to live in obedience to God through the power of the Holy Spirit is something different (not that it can't happen along with salvation, but for many it seems to happen later). At the cross, we are justified; then, we are sanctified (set apart) for the work God "prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10). Understanding this distinction is a long process that began with my upbringing in a Holiness church.

The Church of God, Anderson, is historically a holiness movement that believed sanctification to be a second definite work of grace. Although the Church of God today does not seem to preach sanctification directly, my parents and grandparents alluded to it often as I was growing up, and the Nazarene Church of which my husband and I are members does teach it very intentionally. As my grandmother (the daughter of early Church of God ministers) always said, "When you are saved, you bring your sins to Jesus. When you are sanctified, you bring your Self."

With all of this theology presented to me from a young age, why does this grace of God still catch me by surprise? Because the love of God is so "wide and long and high and deep" that I will never grasp it until I stand before my Savior in heaven. And thank God for that; may the wonder of it never cease. Because I want to be in control of my life and my faith, I tend to come to God only when I feel I have something to offer to His kingdom. I am thankful to the Lord for teaching me this week that He paid my debt in full that day (today, Good Friday) on Calvary, and there is nothing I have ever done or will ever do (try as I might) to add to that payment.

Thank God that His strength is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).