Salvation

Much of contemporary Christianity seems to be hooked on transactional salvation.  By that, I mean to say that one must perform certain steps.  First, convince oneself that Jesus is Lord, however that is understood.  Second, make a public proclamation or sign a nifty "faith statement."  At that a person is deemed "saved," which essentially means saved from eternal torture by an angry deity in the afterlife.

Our understanding of salvation is that it is a completely free gift from God, holy initiative on God's part.  And the proper response is not performance but living a whole new way of life, the Christ Life.  Through Christ's resurrection, we are called to be resurrection people, promoting God's Reign in this world, living the promised eternal life now and forever.   That is called radical discipleship, a crazy new way of being, a tospy-turvy existence in which we love others as much as we do ourselves, and pray for them -- especially our enemies.  Who does that?  It means making our stewardship over our own resources and assets first to serve God's work before any other purpose..  Who does that?  I say adherents are few and far between, yet these qualities are the imitation of the Christ we are called to bring into reality in our own day, in our daily lives.  If we live this life to which we are called, we have no time to obsess on prospects in the afterlife and nothing to worry about.  God can be trusted forever.