Free Salvation,
For All
Thursday, May 4, 2023
The Clouds and the Sun Pass Above Us All.
God’s Blessings Flow Among and Into Us All.
Psalm 119:172
My tongue will sing of your promise, for all your commandments are right.
Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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Words of Grace For Today
Julius discovered this fragment held by a healer he visited in one of the neighbouring communities on his travels to learn more about healing:
The commandments of God, collected in the Old Testament, like many other collections, are not unique to the Old Testament. They are gathered wisdom of humanity, often stated with variations specific to the region of their ‘origin’ or ‘publication’. Yes, God works in many and various ways to help guide us to live well, and to give life in it’s fullness to others.
Likewise, the Gospel of Jesus is not entirely unique, building on the Old Testament, refining and augmenting it. And yet there is one aspect that threads it’s way through the Old Testament and the New Testament which seems to be unique.
It’s almost impossible to implement, or even write about for a community of faithful people, without it being reduced to something else, something ordinary instead of shockingly profound and life giving.
That unique thing about Jesus’ Gospel: that salvation is free. One cannot earn it, or even meet God half way in order to claim it. It is a gift.
The question of life is no longer, ‘What must we do in order to please God and live well?’
Instead the real question of life is, ‘Since God has already given us the fullness of life and the ability to live it, how will we choose to share it with others, for only in sharing the goodness of life, is our life lived to it’s fullest and in the way God created us to live.’
Since it is free, not earned in any way, it is also not restricted to only some people, some people born into our clan or nation.
This free salvation is for everyone.
He promised himself that this would be part of each interaction with people who came to him for healing. Then he thought to himself, as we may also: ‘So how will we share it with others today?’