Of Course I’ve Been Saved
2/12/09 Reflections The story of Jesus chokes me up because through it God is saying “As powerful as I am, your sins can hurt Me because I love you and whatever you do against Me you do against yourself.”
It’s not about reward and punishment. Without God’s propping us up at every moment we would fail — why would God damn us to hell for something we all would do if He didn’t guide us? Our nature is to do what it takes to survive in a hostile environment; the Creator of us and that environment is unlikely to damn us when we do what we must.
That isn’t to say there isn’t goodness on the other end of the spectrum. In fact, this goodness is what proves to me that God is at work in us. Any good we do, no matter how compassionate, ends up being for our own good. Charity results in survival on a higher plane; we not only make it in this world but we do so with personal satisfaction. But this too is a function of God’s master plan – it’s His gift to us to be able to do not only what we must, but what we can.
In summary, we are given a free will to use within God’s master plan, but it’s not in God’s plan to lose even one of us. This was so important that He sent the human manifestation of Himself to tell us so in our own language. He still does this through inspiration and revelation for those brave independents prepared to accept His spirit as their own.
Free will decisions are made to get us through day-to-day life on Earth. They can please God or disappoint God, but He doesn’t react to this with anything but understanding and mercy. God does not need our decisions for His own good, but He knows our decisions affect us, and He wants the best for us. This cannot include eternal damnation.
To those who think this theology is blasphemous, I submit that what you are doing is taking it upon yourself to declare that Jesus has failed in His mission. This chokes me up more than any other sin man can commit. I challenge you and say that beings exist and events occur because God wants things the way they are for His own reasons. We don’t have a say in the master plan, only in how we react to it. If we react in a holy way God shows mercy; if we sin God shows mercy. Our actions don’t change God’s plan for us, and if God is a loving God His plan is not our eternal damnation but our eternal presence with Him. This holy comfort is what God-as-Jesus suffered so deeply to show us – once and forever, for all. So when I hear you ask someone if they’ve “been saved” it makes me want to cry in incredulous exasperation and sadness.
