Christmas Begins the Process

[HKHaugan]

Christmas Begins the Process 

If forgiveness is the starting point of salvation then what we do is accept the One who forgives, the Lord Jesus, and see what we do after that. When Peter preached to the crowd in Jerusalem about why Jesus was crucified they asked what they should do in response. Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).”

 Repentance, the gateway open to let the Light in.

When Peter said ‘repent’ he was literally saying, “I want you to think about the life you are living. Get a right mind (Gk. Metanoia, repent). Right now, you are out of your mind (Gk. paranoia). Admit to yourself that the way you think now, how you view the world and what principles you are living by, just aren’t working. You feel guilty, depressed, unfulfilled and lost inside. What relationships you do have, your job, how you spend your time, are shallow and unfulfilling. You spend a lot of your energy justifying what you think, the relationships you do have and denying what you feel inside. The bottom line is you’re trying to hold on to control of your life. Turn around and look at God and simply say you’re sorry for trying to go it alone without Him. He understands, loves you and will forgive you. Just turn around and see the Cross of Jesus, what He went through to get your attention. That’s the proof.”

 The ongoing process.

Salvation then, is a process that begins with repenting and receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord to be forgiven, that is God receiving your admission and giving you a whole new way to think and live in the world. Because of sin we need a daily reassessment of where we are with God and one another. Repentance is the beginning of a lifestyle, an ongoing part of the restoration process. It is God’s way of restoring us to a lifestyle of thinking, trusting and acting the way He created us to be. Salvation moves on into the depths of our being to recover what we are, images of God, who through Jesus become His children to grow and mature into believers with a secure identity in God, a new view of life with others and a new sense of purpose in the world.  

 There are three parts to the ongoing recovery process, shaping the mind, shaping the heart and shaping the spirit. Discovering what makes us tick and the growing understanding of how far we really are from God is a lifelong program of recovery. We have a spiritual distance from God. Repentance and forgiveness narrow the distance. What we discover in the process of salvation---He has been right next to us all the time. So next. we’ll look at the three parts of the recovery process.