a day to remember

i had not been to an MLB baseball game in over 10 years; tonight that changed. before the game, wg went to the beach and we all had a lot of fun in carlsbad. at the beach i had a lot of good time to talk to people and get to know them better. then, as if the day couldn't get any better, we all went out to dinner and for dessert we had rite-aid ice cream! Pistachio Nut, fyi.

Unfortunately, the Padres lost tonight, but we got to enjoy their beautiful stadium, Petco Park.

On the way home from San Diego, some of the car ride conversations came upon the topic of salvation. Specifically, the topic of grace vs. works based salvation. For those of you who may read this and are not christian or don't care, I'm not trying to be preachy, I'm just writing this down to try to clearly articulate my thoughts on this topic. I've talked about them before, but I've never tried to pen them.

In my life, I've experienced living under both believing in works based salvation and believing in grace based salvation. Living under a works based salvation belief, is commonly called a "legal relationship with God." Basically, you do X and God owes you, or gives you, Y; eventually, you accumulate enough debt with God in order to gain your salvation . Living under a grace based salvation belief is the belief that through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, all who accept and love him are saved because there is nothing greater than Christ's sacrifice. Any effort of our own could never measure up, we always fall short. Good deeds are merely a way to express your love for the sacrifice Christ took upon himself, they do not somehow make God owe you something.

I can remember as a young teen always worried about whether I would go to heaven if I died that week. Had I done enough good? Was that extra sin I committed this week the straw that broke the camel's back? These and other thoughts weighed down my conscience regularly. In addition, I would always find myself in dilemmas: am I going to help this person because I know I will get something in return i.e. heavenly rewards? I was always taught to do service out of the sincerity of your heart and for no other reason but to help others and be selflessly loving. However, I recognized then that within a works based concept of salvation that kind of service seemed impossible. The act of service would always be tainted with the promise of selfish gain.
Within this mind set, I felt a huge weight on my heart. I can still remember how that felt. Picture the balances held by lady justice, I would always find them representing my salvation and whether I had enough weight on the right side in case I bit the dust right then.

As an adult I found an interesting view of salvation, the grace based concept of salvation. I had always been taught that the grace believers had it easy, that they were lazy and silly for believing that one could merely accept Jesus on their death bed and they'd go to heaven just the same as someone who had lived a nearly sinless life their entire life! How is that FAIR?!?! Although I do concede that the deathbed acceptance is a bit questionable, it is not our place to decide where a dying person's heart is at because God will do that. But, here's the interesting part of grace based salvation: what if it is actually more challenging than a legal relationship with God. Now this isn't a quibble over who has it tougher in life so everyone can feel sorry for them. No. I honestly see where the cynic of grace based salvation is coming from, however I don't think they're right. For one reason, it is harder sometimes to do something without the promise of a reward. What will I get out of doing this? What's in it for me? If there's nothing to gain salvation wise from doing acts of service or any other work, then doesn't that free our own conscience from itself because then a person can know that their act is truly selfless, that there is no ulterior motive for selfish gain driving the act? An interesting side note to the cynic's position of grace based salvation is that they may find it unsettling to not know the status of their salvation based on their own works. Having faith in Christ to know that your saved is not enough, a works based salvation gives a stronger sense of assurance because you can so to speak know the current running tally on your debt with God. I've done x, y, and z, I think salvation is in the books for me. The worldly reassurance present in a works based belief is not present in a grace based belief. The primary element of grace is faith and the power of Jesus, while the primary element of a legal relationship is what we do as individuals to save ourselves.

That's about all I wanted to say on the topic. I can't say I wrote it all down as clearly as possible, but I did do my best. If this topic wasn't your can of worms, just quietly move on with your life. I am personally intrigued by the subject and often toy with it in my head as I read the bible and sit in church. Knowing believers from both sides of this debate, if you want to call it that, I find myself constantly drawn back to it in my personally reflections. Even though one person may find the topic so clear and easily resolved, another person may see it completely the opposite. I's amazing how two people can hear the same message and respond completely differently. Put two people in the same room and have them listen to the same speech and they'll have heard two different messages. Blows my mind to little pieces. That simple phenomena is always why I am very gentle and subtle when it comes to discussing my personal beliefs with another person; I always have the odd sense that we can't hear the same things as one another.