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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman
Selfish
Salvation Part of my daily morning
routine is to water our lawn and garden.
One thing that irritates me in the process is when the hose gets
a crimp in it that interrupts the flow of water.
I am forced to put the hose down and find the source of the
blockage. Only after
straightening out the hose can I proceed with watering.
I say that to say this.
In metamorphic terms,
Christians are divine hoses. The
Holy Spirit, and all He provides us, is the water that is meant to flow
through our lives to others. When
we become crimped for one reason or another the Holy Spirit is unable to
flow through us for the benefit of another.
We fail to fulfill our daily duties as Christians.
Look at the words of
Jesus found in John 20:21. "Again Jesus said,
'Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.'"
While on earth the very
essence of God flowed from Jesus to others.
Likewise, as John 20:21 states, the very essence of Jesus is to
flow from Christians to others. As
Jesus was sent into the world as a divine hose, so are we.
It's a Biblical principle. Whatever
we receive from Jesus we are not to selfishly keep for ourselves.
We are to pass it on to others, and if we don't, we become
hoarders of God's love. 1
John 4:11 puts it this way. "Dear friends,
since God so loved us, we also ought to love
one another." All of this implies that there is nothing in us that blocks the free flow of God's Spirit through our lives. It also implies that we live in some form of community. As Christians we are not called to be isolated islands unto ourselves. We have been fitted into the lives of others in the Community of Christ where we pass on the life of Jesus to others. If we keep it all to ourselves we become selfish saved saints, and a "selfish salvation" is not Biblical salvation.
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