Here I Stand, Part 3

There should be nothing shocking in these "guiding principles" that I have talking about lately. They are all relatively simple. They are not radical on paper necessarily, but they are certainly radical when we seek to actually live them out in our lives. That is sort of the point. In fact, the remaining principles deal more with the practical aspects of faith. However, today we are looking at principle #3. It is, "Jesus saves people to/for abundant life." This might seem rather simple (it is!). However, there is one aspect about this that I think we really need to look at as Christians. Jesus saves people to and for abundant life. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is about SO much more than just getting to go to heaven. In fact, you can scour the gospels, how many times do you think you will read that Jesus died on the cross so that you can go to heaven (go ahead and check...I'll wait). You get the idea. Faith in (e.g. personal allegiance to) Jesus' sacrifice on the cross leads to a right relationship with God (justification to use Wesley's term), to personal transformation (sanctification), and transformation of the world. In Luke, when Jesus quotes Isaiah 61 with the quote "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..." he is outlining the nature of salvation. It is about the life we live in the here and now just as much as in the great hereafter. Read about what happened to Zaccheus in Luke 19:1-10. It talks about salvation, but the word heaven is not even mentioned. Some other scriptures that might illuminate this principle are Luke 15:11-32, and John 10:10 to name a couple. This is all very "extreme center" kind of stuff. Jesus saves people to/for abundant life. Here I stand. How about you?