Pastor Ben’s Ponderings

“For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”
(Psalm 116:8-9)

As an American consumer, it’s very easy for me to think that salvation is all about me — my forgiveness, my church, my Jesus, my heavenly home. And while those are certainly all by-products of God’s salvation, the bigger picture really has to do with all that God is doing to reclaim, redeem, and restore a fallen world of which I am just a small part. The biblical story is really about God getting back all that was lost in the Fall. This world is not a failed experiment. God tells John and us in Revelation 21:5, “I make all things new.” That’s what He’s doing in me, and that’s what He’s doing in all of creation. That’s why Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “The creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (8:19).

As I have gotten more acquainted with the big picture of salvation, I’ve discovered so many passages of scripture, like Romans 8 and 1 Peter 2, that have helped me to understand my purpose and reason for being as a child of God and follower of His Son, the servant-king, Jesus. I have the awesome privilege of being part of the evidence that the kingdom of God is indeed at hand. And what does that look like? I like the way Peter states it in 1 Peter 2:12, “Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that . . . They may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.”