"Salvation Ready To Be Revealed"

I Peter 1:5

God is not done with us yet. There are a few things yet to be performed by his almighty grace before our salvation will be complete. Election, redemption and regeneration are finished works of grace. Nothing is lacking. But salvation includes more. It includes what God has done for us, is doing in us and shall yet do with us by his grace.

Soon, the Lord God will bring us safely across the swelling Jordan into our heavenly Canaan. Our dear Savior, who has led us through the wilderness of life, will not leave us at the edge of the river. He will bring us into the land of rest. That heavenly city standing before us is built upon the foundation of grace, has a door of grace through which we shall enter in, and is an inheritance of grace. As God brought Israel into Canaan, not for their righteousness, but for his name's sake, so he will bring his true Israel into the true Canaan, not because of our righteousness, but by grace, for the glory of his own great name.

In the resurrection day, the Lord Jesus Christ will complete his work of grace for us, in us and with us. He will unite our bodies with our souls. He will conform us to himself in glory. He will bring us through the judgment. He will present us without fault, in the perfection of holiness, before his Father's glorious throne. And he will bring us into heaven's everlasting glory. Heavenly glory is the portion of our inheritance. And it is an inheritance of grace alone. It is ours by God's sovereign predestination (Eph. 1:11), by the purchase of Christ's blood (Eph. 1:14) and by the free gift of God's grace (Rom. 6:23).

If you trust your will,your works and your worth, to any degree,you are yet without life before God (Gal. 5:1-4).As Augustus Toplady wrote,"You are an infidel,if you trust your own righteousness. You have,in the sight of God, neither part nor lot in this matter. You are spiritually dead while you pretend to live. Until you are endued with faith in Christ's righteousness, your body is the living coffin of a dead soul. A christian is a believer not in himself, but in Christ." The be- liever boasts not of his free-will, but of God's free grace in Christ. Grace chose,redeemed, called and keeps us. Grace shall bring us home to God in heaven. To God alone we ascribe all praise for his free, saving grace.

Don Fortner