It bugs me.

I don't want this to be a negative blog, so I'll end on a higher note than I start on.

To start, it really bothers me when people take pride in their salvation. Now, it's one thing to take pride in the Lord for saving you. That is a holy pride, a holy boast. Paul says explicitly, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" -2 Corinthians 10:17. So often in my experience with people, however, they take pride in the fact that they believe. You'll hear them saying things like, "I'm a christian so...." or "I believe so...." Here is what bothers me about that. Nowhere in scripture is there a reference to a man's ability to gain his own salvation; in any way. Here is what I take that to mean. Man by himself can do nothing good. That includes believe that Jesus is Lord. Faith must be given by the Lord. So I challenge you, are you proud to be a Christian because it makes YOU look like a good person who has their life together, or because the God you serve has done something incredible in you??  If you think for a second that a man who could not resist eating an apple has the ability to fully believe that a man he has never seen with his own eyes rose from the dead after being mutilated then you are sadly mistaken!

Here's the good part. The Lord hands that faith out freely. We cannot do anything to earn it. God loves us so abundantly that He just lavishes it on us. (Ephesians 1:3-14).  He chooses to use us. He chooses to exalt us. Why? So we can glorify Him. When we glorify Him, He satisfies us. Praise God for that! He loved us enough to create us specifically to glorify Him so we can be satisfied in Him.

Israel Houghton recently wrote a song that says, "Your presence is heaven to me." I think He is right on here. God's presence is heaven. Period. He is why we go there; to be with Him. Just because you are going to heaven and have a blessed assurance of your salvation, be wary of your own pride in that salvation. Is it because you believed or because God saved you? We know the biblical answer is that God actively sought us while we were sinners.

Desiring a deeper understanding,
Jeremy