God started something wonderful in you. With salvation, God started something profound and unique in you. He put thoughts, ideas and concepts in you about living the Christian life. When you received salvation, your spirit received a new life and it’s that new life that encompasses all new thoughts and ideas. Motivation, inspiration and hope were birthed in your spirit. You found true hope and you found a new light. Do you remember how exciting getting saved was? It was going from darkness to light. It was a change that was so big that you couldn’t believe how amazing it was. You were thrilled, you were very excited. What happened after was very crucial. How you maintain your hope and how you let the thoughts and ideas grow in you matter. The thing is if we are not always properly educated about our salvation. We don’t realize that we have to work on staying on the right track. The change is so huge that we think that it will always be great and we will remain in that euphoric state. We can feel invincible and we can feel powerful. Salvation is not about feelings. Faith is not about feelings. It’s about following the Lord, staying in love with God, loving others, acknowledging the Holy Spirit and persevering in faith.
I remember after I got saved I thought that life was going to be a bed of roses forever. I felt so great. I had never felt that way before. I felt close to God. I was full of hope. I was filled with love and my faith was on fire. Then problems came and I was taken aback. I couldn’t understand why things were going wrong. I didn’t expect to feel pain again and yet I did. I had been misinformed about what to expect and I fell from Heaven and landed in hell or at least that’s how it felt. God seemed far and hope appeared to be a temporary feeling that went away. I tried to recapture it. I tried to recreate the great feeling of salvation to no avail. I was looking for thrills instead of looking for God. I learned that maintaining faith was a necessity and it involved a lot of practice and a lot of tenacity. The good fight of faith was real and I had to be strong, take heart and wait on the Lord.
I was determined to getting back to where I was high in faith and where the Lord seemed so accessible. God’s Word gave me the answers I was looking for. Prayer was essential and I decided to make it a habit and to develop a lifestyle of prayer. After all Jesus prayed all the time and He was the author of my faith so I had to imitate Him. I personalized my prayers. I noticed that church always started with praise and worship so I did the same thing. I entered the Lord’s gates with praise and my life changed. Praise and worship took my spiritual life to a higher level. I was in full salvation mode. It doesn’t mean that I had stopped being saved and then I was saved again. It means that I was living out my salvation. I became a lot more God-conscious and being in His presence became a priority. Salvation doesn’t end at the altar and it doesn’t pop up one day a week. It is our new life. It is our new way of being and it implies that we are going to be in communication with the Lord every day and we are going to acknowledge Him in all we do. We are His and He cares about us. We walk in Him. We live in Him. We are everything thanks to Him. Live out your salvation, friend. Be a Jesus-centered Christian. Love out loud. Pump up your muscles of faith. Guard your heart. Stay joyful. Your life in Jesus is amazing! Live it up for Him!
Suggested reading: Psalm 27:13-14; John 16:33; 2 Corinthians 1:3
Words of hope for today 