LORDSHIP SALVATION?

LORDSHIP SALVATION?

I studied very hard and I graduated 3^rd in my class of 47. I walked across the platform and the administrator of the university handed me a diploma, the token of my achievements. I filed the proper papers with the state and completed all requirements of my local area and was granted a license to do business as an electrician. So, today I opened a pastry shop. Am I an electrician? Yes. I am an electrician who makes awesome doughnuts. Educated in the finest university and licensed by the state to work as an electrician but making cakes and pies. A person may be one thing while living as another.

I am frequently asked about my position on lordship salvation because of my rants. I believe the Church is lukewarm at best. There are so many today claiming to be saved but living like the rest of the world. They claim to be one thing while living as another. Are they saved?

Can you see my dilemma? Many said a prayer for salvation. Did they get saved? If you tell me you are an electrician but you own a bakery. Are you an electrician? How can “I” know? Where is the evidence? The electrician I described above could only show you the paperwork because his daily life is the life of a baker. Where is the evidence that he is an electrician?

We are saved by faith through God’s grace. We do not make Jesus the Lord of our life in order to become saved or as a part of the salvation package. That is lordship salvation and I do not believe it is the gospel preached by Christ or his Apostles. However, any child who is born will show evidence of having been born unless he is still-born (II Corinthians 5:17). If we truly have been born into God’s family,  and His Holy Spirit lives within us, our lives ought to show some kind of evidence; giving us the assurance of that salvation, II Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be (unless you are) reprobates? John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (John 15:7-10; Colossians 2:6; I Corinthians 3:16 and many others).

Can we be saved without being super saints? Yes. But when we get saved there should be evidence of it in our daily lives. Our love of sin should change into hatred. Sin should become repugnant to us. Sin put Jesus on the cross, it caused Him to have to suffer and die in our place. We may fall into sin but we should not be comfortable there. Our attitude should be one of repentance; having a desire to turn away from sin. We were the enemy of God and now we are His children. Our attitude should be one of service to God. We should be looking for ways to worship Him, to praise Him and to reach others for Him. Is that Lordship? Or is it gratitude for what He has already done in our lives?

Making Christ the Lord of our lives does not save us and is not a “requirement” of God’s simple plan of salvation. However, does it not simply follow that if we truly are saved, He will be our Lord? And so, I say with the Apostle Paul, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith….”