Individual Salvation :: By Don McReynolds

Isn’t it so weird that you exist? Isn’t it just a head-scratching phenomenon that you’re standing on a floating orb that’s inside a vast universe that’s so large you can’t even fathom, its beginning or end? Isn’t it even more confusing that the complexity of your mind and existence allows thinking, choices, pain, and sadness; the mind is so interesting that we are self-aware of ourselves?

God has been waiting and watching as His created life forms called Man evolve enough in their own development to ask the question of questions. That inquiry into why do we exist?

I find it puzzling that I am alive, and that I am composed of flesh and bones in such an intricate arrangement operating together which makes up the systems of the human anatomy. The eye opens up and it sees the amazing skyline, but the eyeball itself doesn’t comprehend the fact that it is amazing; it just allows the glory to be revealed.

Is this question that hard to answer? When I take a step back and look at my piece of the big puzzle, I can’t help but snap it into place at the Cross. Is there something special about me that I should have the truth? Why is it that I have been selected before the beginning of time to be a son, of God? What is that X-factor that the Lord saw in me that I should taste the sweet gift of salvation?

Maybe it has to do with the fact that the King of creation just likes me. Maybe in all of His majesty, He found a special place in His heart that I could fit into. Maybe one day the Lord of all life said, “I like that Donnie, he is one funny interesting character.” I just find it so intriguing that our water walking God would find anything appealing about me.

What I find even more fascinating is that we Christians profess our God to be the one and true God. Likewise the other false gods and their followers profess theirs as that singular truth. I think anyone who has the ability to use logic and reasoning has to by default at least know a creator exists.

So how does one get to that single truth in a sea of lies? I will reference a Scripture that the Savior of the world said on His days to walk the earth that might shed some light on the question.

“Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into, a pit” (Matthew 15:14).

The King was making it simple; we all have a personal responsibility in finding the truth. We all have what I would like to call individual salvation and individual accountability before the Shining Man. King Jesus is more or less requiring that creation respond to their existence with deep thought. Furthermore the Lord is warning that if you are too lazy to seek truth and fall prey to a blind guide—then you will not escape the pit.

So how is it that we can know Jesus is the true God? What is the underlining characteristic about our God compared to all the false belief systems that have been created by the enemy? Our God predicts the future, and then fulfills it line by line with perfection. Our God knows the future because He is the Author of it. Jesus is the Composer of life itself, and He decided to put it on paper for us to see, to study and to experience the truth.

You can never tell someone what truth is—it has to be experienced to truly believe it and have it change his or her life. That person must individually comprehend the truth. Jesus through His Word allows this interaction with the soul.

One thing I have learned with Jesus is this: He is very mysterious. I don’t hear His voice in some audible fashion. Jesus doesn’t metaphorically embrace me with a hug (like I hear others speak of). Jesus has never tangibly given me a measurable personal interaction per say, between just the two of us where I go off telling people, “The Lord said this, or the Lord did that.”

Jesus requires a faith from all of us in everything. It’s not just faith in forgiveness or that Jesus even exists. Its faith in every possible encounter you can experience in this side of life with God. Jesus gave us His Word. If God speaks to me, it’s through the Scriptures because I have them ingrained in my mind. If the Lord speaks it’s me going back to the Words I have already read through, or that I am presently reading.

I have prayed and prayed, and begged God to just say anything. Just have Him acknowledge me. I will not say God will not ever do this, but I am not holding my breath. I think Jesus would say you have everything you need in the Word and in my creation. What makes this even more captivating is that God speaks through this Word, and He has a perfect track record of fulfillment of prophecy through the Bible. I mean Jesus is spoon-feeding encounters to Man if they would just read His Word and look at history and the present.

See, I think what makes the Word even more solid and trustworthy is the fact that God speaks through it. Now Jesus doesn’t sing us lullabies on request, but He fulfills prophecy by His Word. Jesus doesn’t have a nightly TV program we can tune in to every night to get an update on the timing of His judgment. Although to the student of the Word, it has been made very clear that we are in the end of the last days.

So think about it, Jesus is mysterious on a personal day-to-day level, but He is God and does exist. Because God is so distant and hidden, that’s what makes the Word and the potential implications of what He is saying so much more imminent. You better believe Jesus is going to fulfill His Words, you better believe we have less time than more. The Word of God is just the mechanism God chose to use to speak to us.

I think after sitting down, eating a three-course meal of the Word of God, creation itself, and the perfect track record of God’s prophetic Word. Man can easily digest into his system that Jesus is the one true and living God.

One thing I have learned in my walk with God is that I have to start perceptibly recognizing that Jesus really does live. Jesus is the only person in the room at all times that people don’t acknowledge. The Creator of the earth for some reason finds me interesting enough to seek out. If He will seek me out, I know He shows no favoritism.

What’s so crazy to me is that I am one of the few who recognize this call from God. I plainly see that we are living in the last of the last days. God has placed a perspective in my life that I never thought I could achieve; being contentment in my current circumstance. The day I realized how special I am to God happened about a couple of weeks ago. I was telling a guy about the Lord and the truth of salvation. The guy had a way higher pay grade then myself, and in a way mocked me for my low position and how far I had fallen from my last job title.

As I spoke the truth, I could see this guy thinking I was crazy. I was watching his reaction toward Jesus and eternal life as I spoke. His mind would not become unlocked from the world. That’s when I really fathomed my position. I am a child of God! I changed that day forever, in that my earthly pride diminished so much because I realized it was so futile. That guy I was trying to reach was like so many others—lost!

It’s moments like those when you get off from work, and you just look up at the night sky and tell God thanks for saving me. Tell the King that you understand why He has allowed all the adversity and pain in your life. You shout for joy in your soul because you get to meet the Man behind the plan. His feet are like burnished bronze, His eyes like blazing fire, and His voice is like rushing waters.

The Creator of everything is planning a huge party and we all be invited. One thing I always wondered though, when we get there, how is Jesus going to talk to all of us at the same time. You have millions of people standing shouting, “King Jesus over here.” My brother answered this question one day the best way it can be described to our tiny minds. He said, “It will be like an air conditioner, everyone just feels it.”

See you on the other side!

McReynoldsdon@ymail.com

Don McReynolds