Salvation is a free gift, yet it’s often treated as if it could be earned. You can acquire this precious gift in this divine marketplace without spending anything. Everyone can access the blessings of heaven, as the door to truth is open to all. There’s no barrier to entering this door; the Savior and the voice within invite us to come. Christ urges us to seek His refined gold, making us truly rich.
The gospel is a blessing available to everyone, regardless of wealth. Even the poorest can obtain salvation, as it can’t be bought with money. We accept it through the willingness to obey and surrender of our wills to Christ. High education doesn’t bring one closer to God by itself. The Pharisees, despite their advantages, were spiritually blind and poor.
Salvation can't be earned, but it requires a sincere desire that leads to a willingness to give up everything God asks of us. God will not complete the good work in us against our will. God wants your willing obedience, shows us our deficits, and empowers us to turn away from our sins to him as long as we submit to him.
I have been thinking about what salvation means, why Gods grace falls on some and not others. I can imagine as a non believer that we can get consumed by the world. We have natural instincts like love bonding, having shelter and food and the drive to survive. These are strong forces.
Its easier I think to trust in what is in front of you, rather than something that is beyond which may not give you instant gratification, security or other needs and wants. To trust in ourselves as the arbitor and selector of what is best. This is often short term and material.
Though as humans we do know of the more transcedent needs. Maslows hierarchy of needs begins with the physical but at its top is self fullfillment and the ultimate need is transcedent and spiritual. So we know that there is more to life than just the material.
But I think the physical and material aspects dominate most so belief in anything transcedental and certainly God is sort of superficial or an added benefit. Like evolution sees human agency, culture, religion as an extended phenotype and not anything real or independent that may actually change reality or give us knowledge and benefit beyond the physical.
Belief is seen as a secondary phenomena and not real. I think that is why its hard for people to let go and completely give over to God as it goes against all these forces that make the immediate material world the only reality and way we should exist.
It requires giving up self, and overlooking the physical drives and instincts and to trust in something unseen and intangible. Yet at the same time we can taste the tangibility of spirituality and know that it is the true key to happiness and life meaning. It seems people know the truth but will only go so far in giving over to God.
In that sense I think its really a spiritual battle. Satan wanted to be God, wanted to create world order and fundementally its about rebellion against God. Letting god of our self as god and bowing to a power greater than ourselves.
Many find this hard especially in a world that is rejecting God and promoting self as god. Humans can do anything, you have a right over yourself and no one can tell you what to do. This is the ideology now being pushed especially since society has removed God from the public square relegating Him to the fringes.
In fact its going beyond the idea that humans are gods and don't need God. Now its outwardly hostile to Christ. It seems the more people believe they are gods the more they hate God. More than just an indifference towards a different belief or view but a personal hatred of anything to do with God.
Perhaps as with the cities and people who defied and rebelled against God in the past creating their own gods and thinking they were wise and superior while indulging in sin as though there was no sin or God. Then Gods judgement will come.
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