Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

A Deeper Teaching by Kenton Cheek

Salvation is an event (the new birth), a process (sanctification), and a future goal (glorification). God loves everyone and we all have been made for relationship with Him and created in His image, but that relationship was severed by sin and that image has been corrupted by sin and needs to be restored. As a person decides to follows Christ, they surrender different areas of their life to His lordship and become more like Him in love and holiness. This process of spiritual growth and being remade in His image is called sanctification. The goal is perfection which will happen at the resurrection, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

During the earthly ministry of Jesus, a Pharisee named Nicodemus had a conversation with the Lord that is recorded for us in John, chapter three. We learn much of salvation from this nighttime talk. In order to have eternal life, an individual must be born again. This is the part of salvation that is an event. “Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” This new birth experience happens by grace (the undeserved favor of God) through faith (belief in one who is unseen), trust (choosing to take Jesus at His Word and standing upon His promises), repentance (having a change of mind and direction about sin), and confession (declaring aloud that a genuine commitment has been made to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord).

At the New Birth, a person goes from darkness to light, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and from enmity with God to friendship and even deeper, from being God’s creation to becoming His child. God has given us free moral agency, the will to either choose to follow Jesus or reject Him and go our own way. If we choose to follow Him, we have the promised assurance of salvation. We must believe, repent, confess and receive Him and we will be born again, becoming part of His eternal family. Once we were slaves to sin, now we are servants and sons and daughters of the Most High God.
I am astounded that many in the world who are so angry with God claim to not believe in Him. In order for us to experience the depth of His love and enjoy healthy, righteous, life-giving relationship with Him as He desires, we must first believe that He exists. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” We must choose to have faith. We must decide to believe and take it a step further and begin to seek Him and His will for our lives. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Belief that Jesus is God requires trust, a stronger form of faith. If Jesus is God, then His Word must be true and He should be followed and obeyed. “For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” We must take Christ at His Word and stand upon His promises.

As we learn of the kindness, goodness and glory of God, we realize that we fall short of His glorious standard. “God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.” God is perfect in every way and we are not. For some reason it is not difficult for most to acknowledge that they are not perfect, but in order to have God’s righteousness imputed to us, we must accept that we are sinners in need of His grace. There is a crossroads where a person changes their mind and decides that they do not wish to continue trying to make life work on their own, that they are a sinner and that they want God’s help in changing who they are for the better. This change of mind and direction away from sin and toward the Savior is repentance. Jesus took John the Baptist’s message of repentance further saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

The Spirit assures us through the Apostle John in I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” And the assurance is given through the Apostle Paul, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” It is not enough to keep belief in Jesus to oneself, one must openly declare that he or she has decided to follow Jesus in order to be saved. The new birth brings about a definite change of heart that is expressed in a holy lifestyle in private and in public. As we follow the Lord, we worship Him in Spirit and in truth, with both word and deed.

If we believe, repent, confess and receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, we are born again and our position with God the Father is changed. Before salvation we were enemies of God. James 4:4 tells us, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” By grace through faith and not of works we are justified, which means that we are made right with God. Salvation brings us into the eternal family of God. Followers of Jesus go from being sons of Adam and daughters of Eve to become sons and daughters of the Most High God. We become members of God’s household.

At the very core of our being we are made perfect, but that perfection must work its way into every aspect of our character and every area of our lives. Yes, our hearts are in right relationship with God, but our lives must be gradually brought into alignment with His perfect principles. This process of salvation is called sanctification. We are “being saved” as the Word tells us in I Corinthians 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
The born again experience is like the epicenter of an earthquake and the shockwaves which radiate out through the earth is like holiness working its way into every fiber of our being.

This concept is what is referred to in Philippians 2:12-13 where the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” As a believe yields to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in their life, God empowers them to honor Him with their thoughts, words and actions. It is God working through them. “In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” If a person truly has the Holy Spirit within them as a result of the new birth, then they will “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” This means expressing God’s love to others in word and deed and living a holy lifestyle that is pleasing to the Lord.

As a person surrenders aspects of their character and areas of their lives to the will and control of Jesus, he or she invites God’s will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Christians are to, “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” Through the process of sanctification, the corrupted image of God in which we were naturally born into is being restored to the perfect reflection God intended us to have and to be. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Growing spiritually with the Lord involves continually saying no to sin and yes to Him. This cultivates a lifestyle of repentance which produces holiness. This obedience is not to earn salvation, earn our position with Him or earn better standing with the Father, but rather flows by the Spirit from a grateful heart of love for God.

If a person has made a profession of faith, but there is no fruit with comes from repentance or the individual continues in the faith for a time but then abandons his or her walk with the Lord, then either the profession was not genuine or the spiritual experience, while it may have been real, was not the new birth experience. Some people get caught up in religious fervor, but that does not mean a definite change of heart. Scripture, as we have explored together, is clear about the new birth event of salvation, the sanctifying process of spiritual transformation, and the eventual goal of our faith which is perfect unity and harmony with the Father and His eternal family through the Son. My counsel to those who are in rebellion against God, do not have an assurance of salvation, or who are struggling with doubt, is to seek the Lord today while He may be found, stand firm upon His promises, and move forward in faith.