What is salvation?
A person who is drowning in deep waters is saved from death when he comes to the surface and breaths air.
A slave is saved when he is set free and does not have to honor his former master.
In a certain way, Jesus was saved when the Lord resurrected Him.
We Christians say that a saved person is the one who has eternal life while a lost person is the one who has not.
Who is qualified to be saved?
There are many verses in the Bible talking about that, however we tend to simply put: the one who believes in Jesus.
We forget to pay attention to:
Matthew 24:13 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
How, then, may someone be confident that he will endure to the end?
This was my question for a long time. I have seen many people abandoning their faith in Jesus: people that do not congregate in a church, do not read the Bible, do not pray. Perhaps they say to themselves that they are saved, but I am quite sure that under persecution they would not endure to the end because of the great signs that they had already given up their faith.
How can I be different?
In my youth, I also had given up congregating; therefore, I have never been confident on my abilities to follow Jesus.
I have always heard in churches:
- Unless you have assurance of your salvation, you are not saved. If you want to be saved, come and receive Jesus as your savior.
I responded many times to altar calls. I do not know how many times I received Jesus.
For a long time, Matthew 24:13, among many other verses, do not fit to our american model of salvation (quite sure, it is american or, at least, it is British).
Therefore, for a long time, I have seen salvation, endurance and eternal life assurance as not compatible. It took sometime to perceive the root of the incompatibility: free will.
In another post, I will try to be pro free will and then, against free will. I will try to show how it affects our eternal life assurance.
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