Salvation is a Contract

People in ancient times, like us, negotiated treaties, had agreements, signed contracts, and made covenants between individuals and between nations. In Exodus 19 God is offering a covenant with the Israelites that included specific obligations with blessings and curses depending on the conformity to the covenant. The first covenant God made was with Noah. More recently Jesus made a covenant with his followers at the Last Supper that he called a New Testament.

As modern believers it would be a good idea for us to recognize that the Plan of Salvation is itself a covenant or contract with pledges, expectations, and results. What would happen if we saw our Christian experience as a contract with God and began such living?

Having an agreement or contract with God automatically sets us apart from the rest of the world. Most people have no intention or desire to have such a relationship with God. They are more full of themselves rather than looking toward deity. The Christian is conscientious about a godly life.

With the plan of salvation, we have a contract with God that is a matter of honor causing us to comply. It is similar to the contract God made with the Israelites that he would bless them if they obeyed and curse them if they did not. The difference between the two is that the plan of salvation contains no curses. Instead, when we go astray God will discipline us to bring us back in line to his expectation as the Heavenly Father.

There are times living with the plan of salvation it requires for us to be courageous. We have to be courageous against our own selves, our own thinking, our own ideas. We also have to be courageous against the world so that no matter how they treat us we will stay truthful to our pledge with God.

Because of the plan of salvation that we accept from God we are enabled to receive blessings that we could not otherwise gain. Those blessings range anywhere from healing to eternal security. It has always been God’s desire to bless us. The waywardness of mankind is the cause for interfering with his desires.

Obviously, the plan of salvation that we received from God specifies what and how we are to behave. No longer can a believer toy with the ways of the world. No longer is it appropriate for the believer to be involved in the conduct of the world. Taking God’s name in vain or listening to off-color jokes are just an example of how we must separate ourselves from a former life.

Anyone who is serious about following Jesus would generate some type of an effect on other people that is outside the plan of salvation. It might be a silent witness. It might be compassion. It could even be the opportunity to lead that person to Christ.

If someone in the world would stop and think about it, they really have no reason or any type of understanding for their life. On the contrary, a follower of Christ is very aware of the deeper things of spiritual matters. The worlding simply lives from day to day doing what they want.

When we look back at our life and how God put details with people together crossing our path, we can realize that everything that happened led us to the plan of salvation as God directed for our  own good in this life and for the next. What was once a small incident or casual conversation did become monumental in leading us to a relationship with Christ.

Since salvation is a contract with God, it challenges us to rise above what we see and know. This is why faith is defined in Hebrews 11 as, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The reality is that every believer lives by faith, trusting that everything God told us in the Scriptures is true and will eventually be realized.

For any person it is easy to be bogged down in the circumstances of living in this world. Earthly living is not a tiptoe through the tulips. There are interferences. There are logs the fall across our path. There is always a big bad wolf waiting to huff and puff against us. Even with all of this, we look beyond it, beyond life in this world. The life of the believer is not static. Each believer has telescopic vision for the future.

With every step we take in life we have the opportunity to say that we are okay under the circumstances. However, trusting in God we can say because of him we are above the circumstances. We have an expectation of God’s next blessing. Today is not all there is. Christ is the one who made the difference.