Salvation is a package deal that covers every part of your existence: your past, present, and future. There are three New Testament words to describe your salvation package. They are justification, sanctification, and glorification. These three concepts found in the Apostle Paul’s letters to the churches are foundational to your understanding of what it means to be saved. Believing and trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of your Lord and Savior brings you into the salvation experience. Remember it is a work in progress—past, present and future!
The first part of your salvation is justification. You have been (past tense) justified in the sight of God the Father through the blood of His Son. You have been (past tense) declared not guilty! You have been given a place of sonship with the Father!
Having been justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:24-26)
The second part of your salvation package is sanctification. This is an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in your life that requires your cooperation. God wants to transform you into the image of Christ through the work of His Holy Spirit. As you yield to the precious anointing within He will help you develop Christian character, the fruit of your spirit man. The anointing will also empower you for service to those who need to hear the Gospel. Your cooperation and obedience to God will determine what kind of eternal rewards you will receive when Jesus comes again.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4)
The final part of your salvation has not occurred yet but is the most exciting! It is the glorification of your physical body. Jesus is returning soon to take His church up to heaven. All believers from previous generations will be resurrected and given new flesh and bone bodies just like Jesus. The final generation of believers will not even taste physical death but be translated to heaven! Could you be a part of that final generation?
Behold, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written—death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15:51-54)
Aren’t you glad that God saved you! Your past, present, and future is in God’s hands. God has everything covered concerning you! So work out your salvation experience knowing the best is yet to come!
Finish Strong! 