Salvation is wonderfully simple! It is so simple that even a child can understand how to be saved. That is not to say that at the same time there is something unfathomable about salvation. So it is with the Christian life. There is an aspect of simplicity of truth in regards to the key to power and victory in our lives, yet at the same time we are dealing with “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
There is a verse of Scripture that tells us we ought to walk the Christian “walk” like we received salvation. Colossians 2:6 teaches, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” There is some similarity, some parallel, between our salvation and our walk. The verb, “received”, talking about salvation is in the aorist tense. All that reminds us is that salvation is an event. It is a crisis. No one is saved over days or weeks. They are saved in an instant as they believe. The action “walk” is in the present tense. This means that our Christian walk is a process. It is a constant action. In other words, sanctification is a life long process.
I like to look at this way. If salvation is a still photograph, then sanctification is a moving picture. in other words there is something about salvation that needs to be reproduced in each frame of our life. What is it about salvation that needs to be in each step of our “walk.” Think about it. Before you came to Christ you came to realize your need. You were a sinner, lost and headed to hell. You became aware to a great degree of the impossibility of saving yourself. As the gospel was preached or taught, you came to realize that what you could not do, Christ has already done. He has satisfied the wrath of God, suffered and paid for your sins. All you needed to do was to look to Him to do all the saving. You needed to depend on Him. The moment you did, it was a done deal. Your sins were washed away. You became righteous in the sight of God. Heaven became part of your inheritance.
Now think about our Christian experience. Sooner of later in our walk we come to the awareness that we cannot live the Christian life. We are too weak. Have you ever despaired of your utter failure as a Christian? Have you sincerely desired to do better, only to eventual fail again miserably? In Romans 7 the writer cries out “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The answer is telling, because it is the same answer for salvation. “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
At salvation we depended upon Christ for salvation. Likewise, every moment of our Christian life should be one of dependance upon the living Christ to enable us to live for Him. After all in regards to our walk, it does say “we walk by faith, and not by sight.” Philippians 4:13 is still there. “I can do all things through Christ which strenghteth me.” What about Galatians 2:20? “Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of (dependance upon) the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” It is as simple as salvation. Depend upon the indwelling Christ to enable you to obey Him.
How does one know he is depending upon Christ? It is simple. He obeys. If one believes Christ will enable to give the gospel, he will give the gospel expecting God to work. If one depends upon Christ to enable to victory in an area of defeat, he will obey in that area expecting God to strengthen him. Did not the songwriter aptly write,
[quote]Trust and obey, for there is no other way
To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.[/quote]
Why all the above? Because if a child can understand salvation, he can understand the Christian walk. This means a teenager who is saved should be able to understand the walk of faith. In fact, they need to understand these truths. I do not want to downplay, however, the necessity to divine illumination. I Corinthians 2:12 teaches us that “we have received . . . the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” God’s Spirit must open one’s eyes to this truth of the Christian life found in God’s Word.
Let us give forth the truths of the Sprit-filled life with the prayer God will illuminate the truth in teenage hearts. There lives (as well as ours will never be the same). There is nothing like seeing a teenager begin to realize the reality of God in their lives. The key? “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” You see, it really is a simple as salvation.
