Necessity of Salvation (Love)

John 3:5-8

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Emphasis added)

Titus 3:1-5

Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, ² to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. ³ For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, ⁵ not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit...

Jesus was telling us that Salvation is not optional, but a command, a must. Jesus played His part, coming and dying for us. Our part is to receive Him, and be born again. We're now new beings, having been regenerated and washed. Salvation is a totally new life, where we quit our old life and die to it, and embrace a new one. What did we gain, after salvation? Many people acknowledge blessings and other good things when they got born again, when asked what they've gained through salvation, not keeping in mind that Christ is the most important gift we acquired from salvation.

2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.  ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

By God's mercy and grace, we no longer live in the flesh, but in the spirit. If at all we're new, we should not regard them with their old lives, and seeing their pasts; our identity as believers is in Christ Jesus. The moment we see someone give their lives to Christ, whatever they did in the past is gone, and doesn't matter anymore. From that point, we should see them as God sees them, and God sees them as new.

How can we daily walk with Christ?

2 Corinthians 5:7

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Galatians 5:25

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Basically, as we've seen, we were saved by Jesus, left our old lives, and are now new creations. Now, God tells us how to live: in and by the Spirit of God. Any time you see our brothers and sisters in Christ, we should see Christ. We all make mistakes, but those mistakes shouldn't define us; Christ defines us. Even we a times condemn ourselves, or allow the devil to condemn us; thereby, we feel like we don't deserve anything from God. We should however not view ourselves in the way of the flesh. The moment we start defining and describing ourselves, it shouldn't be who we are and see ourselves in the flesh; it should be who Jesus says we are: blessed, forgiven, blameless, justified, redeemed, and so on. This should be the main thing, at all times. Since we are spirit beings, we shouldn't regard others in the flesh, but in the spirit, and by what Jesus carried on calvary (love, kindness, faithfulness, etc.) As we do this, people will offend us, but since we've loved them unconditionally, we won't focus on their mistakes, but desire to be a blessing. Before we judge others, we should look at ourselves. The moment we start judging others, we are saying we're better than those people, and end up being proud. We should never point a finger at people, as we don't know the journey they've been through; not only the believers, but also unbelievers.

Jesus said that when one sheep goes astray of the 100, the shepherd leaves the 99 and goes searching for the one that went astray. When he finds it, he places it on his shoulder, and rejoicingly brings it back home (Matt. 18:12-14), rejoicing over that particular sheep even more than over the 99 that didn't go astray. Every soul matters, to Christ, and so every soul should matter to us. We shouldn't only do good things to believers, but also unbelievers.

Love is the only way to live the Christian life as we should. God loves us all equally. His love for us all is the same. We should receive God's love from Him, and learn from Him on how to love others, regardless of who they are. It all started with love, it goes on with love, and it will end with love. All the traits of Jesus are in us, even though they can't be seen. We have to see them, and see the same traits of Christ in others. Let us walk in love. 

Blessings. 

    Kelvin Mutuma

Sunday Morning Exhortation, Transformation Ministry, Ruiru. 

Brother Kelvin is the Teen Leader at Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.