Cover 2018-11-04

Ron Writes

Salvation—Past, Present and Future

An Iraqi convert said that when he was a Muslim he was always working. He was always striving to do enough good deeds to outweigh the bad deeds. He’d worry at night that he hadn’t done enough to earn a reward. Now that he’s a Christian, he says he gladly does good deeds. He had experienced the love of God. He was no longer striving to do enough to outweigh the bad. He had been saved by grace.

Christianity is wonderful! We are saved! “God saved us” (Tit. 3:5). Past. We are being saved (1 Cor. 15:2). Present. We shall be saved (Mk. 16:16). Future.

You are allowed to be both a Masterpiece and a Work-in-Progress, simultaneously...

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Eph. 2:10). The word workmanship has the idea of being a masterpiece. We are God’s masterpiece.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:13-14)

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Cor. 5:17).