Salvation

How do you define salvation?  What does it mean?  If someone asked to you to explain it, what would you say?
To be absolutely truthful (although I am always truthful with you), I think people who answer the question, "Salvation is God's gift of eternal life to us" are correct but not thorough.  That answer is too easy and simple.  And when answers in Christianity are easy and simple, then I usually think that there must be more to it.

Christianity, in its best form, is not a 101 level class.  It's complicated, radical and anything but simple.

Tyrone Gordon preached on Saturday an Annual Conference.  As part of his sermon, he talked about salvation.  He said that according to Luke, salvation is more than going to heaven.  It is deliverance.  It is deliverance from whatever binds us -- spiritually, socially or physically.  It is deliverance from all kinds of evil.  Salvation is a restoration to wholeness to live as we were created to live.

I think all of that implies that salvation is not only the gift of eternal life.  It is the gift of life right now, right here.  It is a gift God gives all of us, and it is a gift we can help God give to others.  We can help to free people from whatever is binding them.  For example, when we free someone from loneliness so that they can live out their lives more fully, we are serving God by bringing about the salvation he offers.  When we feed someone, cloth someone, visit someone in the hospital, we are helping God to bring about salvation.

The result is a wholeness of life -- LIVED NOW and lived in the future through eternity.

I really like his explanation because it sounds so Wesleyan -- social justice and holiness.  They are completely intertwined.  We have to offer bread -- bread for the body and bread of faith.