Salvation Is Of The Lord

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for Coming Alive to More Gospel Implications During Lent

     Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.1 Thess. 5:23-24

Holy and loving Father, as I continue to meditate on your Word and pray my way through Lent, it’s portions of the Bible like this one that make me want to weep and dance at the same time. I feel like weeping over the years I spent in gospel-ignorance, a stranger to the ways of grace, knowing so little about what Jesus actually accomplished on our behalf.

I am grateful that you brought me to Jesus when you did, and when you did, I lost all fear of dying. But for years I was clueless about how you actually change your sons and daughters. I suffered much under the hands of bad theologies, man-centered remedies, and Christ-less formulas.

This one passage, alone, highlights how “salvation is of the Lord,” not, of the Lord plus my best efforts.  Father, you are the God who called me to life in Jesus—for I was dead, not just misinformed; you are thoroughly transforming me to be like Jesus—for I can’t even change the oil in my car; you are keeping my whole being blameless until the day you send Jesus back to finish making all things new—for I could not possibly bring to completion a workyou have begun. The God of peace you are indeed! Where else can such peace, joy, and assurance be found?

How did I miss the really good news of the gospel for so long? Why was I such an easy target for performance-based spirituality? Why wasn’t I able to recognize corruptions of the gospel sooner?

I lament the years I spent in seeing Jesus more as my perfect model than as my perfect Righteousness—rededicating my life to Jesus; trying to make him Lord of all things; holding out for a second and third and ninth and seventeenth baptism in the Spirit… instead of savoring a life of union and communion with Jesus. How did I miss so much of the gospel for so very long?

Father, how I praise you for turning my man-centered mourning into God-delighting dancing. You’ve removed the sackcloth of my unrighteousness and my self-righteousness, and have clothed me with the wedding garments of the Lamb. You have declared me to be righteous in your sight, engraved on your hand and secure in your embrace.

With the music of a coming banquet already emanating from heaven, my prayer is simply this: more and more, and through and through, make me like Jesus. You are faithful and you will do it. So very Amen I pray, with profound gratitude and humble assurance, in Jesus’ holy name.