Salvation Reprise II

Salvation is not a once in a lifetime event. Having responded to God at some point in our lives does not admit that we can stand on that event forever. It is not accurate, in an absolute sense, to suggest that at some future point we can stand before God and justify ourselves because we had done such and so at some time in the past. We are not able to say that we had let go at some point, or that we had been baptized, or performed some penance and therefore God must accept us. Because salvation is more appropriately described as a relationship, a state of existence, it is not properly or completely defined by a legal state or by some act. We either are saved, in relationship with God, submissive to Him, or we are not. We cannot say "I may not be in submission to God now, but I once was." We either live in concert with God or we do not.

What God wants is people who seek Him, who want to live with Him, in Him, and to have Him move through them. This living is imperfect and God knows it will be. And so the relationship is not perfection (we continually seek to let God transform us), but a consistent though imperfect submission to Him. It is in this life of submission and trust, this character of life, this imperfect-but-made-complete-in-Christ existence that we are continuously cleansed; it is in this life that we are eternally safe. We are safe not because we have performed some act, but because of who we seek to follow, who we are. Because we have let go of self and live in trustful submission to God.