Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.  For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.

 
 
 

Going to Jesus

Daily Thoughts

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Thought for Today
Jan. 04

SALVATION

From comments by Preacher Clark, late 1970's.

There is no salvation apart from Jesus. Salvation is with him (Zech. 9:9), and him alone (Acts 4:12). We could confess this same truth in these words: to be in the personal presence of Jesus is to be saved. That is why the apostles taught that we are not saved until Jesus returns. Jesus is our salvation, and when we look for him to return again, we are looking for our salvation.

Shortly before Mary gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, God revealed to an old prophet named Simeon that he would not die until he saw the Messiah. (Simeon might have been reading the book of Daniel and seen, in chapter 9, that it was time for the Messiah to come.) One day, the Lord told Simeon to go to the temple in Jerusalem. The old prophet obediently went, and there he came upon Mary, Joseph, and their baby Jesus. He reached down and took up the holy child and joyfully raised his voice toward heaven, saying, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

Jesus is salvation. Simeon felt that in the Spirit. In Hebrew, Jesus' name means "salvation", and that is what he is.

When traveling through Jericho, on the way to Jerusalem for the last time, Jesus entered into the house of a man named Zacchaeus. Once there, the Lord Jesus said, "This day salvation is come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham." With these words, Jesus was not saying, as Christian ministers so often do, that from that moment, Zacchaeus was "a saved man". He was merely saying that he, God's salvation, had entered into the house of another of the "lost sheep of the house of Israel", to whom alone Jesus was sent (Mt. 15:24; Rom. 15:8). When Jesus left Zacchaeus' house that day, salvation left with him, continuing toward Jerusalem and the cross.

When you receive the holy Ghost, you receive the hope of salvation that Jesus purchased for you on that cross; you receive the promise that Jesus will return and save you. When he returns, if you have been faithful, you will receive the salvation that he will bring with him when he comes. That salvation is in the form of a new body, a "glorified" body that will never know suffering or death. That is salvation. If we don't receive that salvation from Jesus when he comes, what will it matter what we have claimed to possess while we lived here on earth?

This is the only understanding of salvation that will stand the test of all the holy Scriptures. Search it out for yourself, and may Jesus give you increase in the knowledge of God as your reward.

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