What is faith? What is salvation? These have often become religious buzzwords, by overuse flattened out into abstraction, holy words sliding into empty slogans. Yet both faith and salvation have definite form and can be discerned in tangible ways. They can be embodied and lived out, realities to be inhabited, not concepts to be admired from afar.
Faith is lived trust, casting all our cares and anxieties upon the Lord, who takes care of us (1 Peter 5:7). It is committing our way to the Lord, entrusting ourselves to him who acts on our behalf (Psalms 37:5). It is following Lord Jesus, walking in his ways: “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).
Salvation is transformative reality, as the apostles of our Lord have taught us: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). “Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). “Therefore, my dear friends ... continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:12-13). “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:4).
To follow Lord Jesus, walking in his ways,
entrusting all to him, is
the beginning of salvation.
For neither faith nor salvation are
abstractions
but are livable, transformative,
incarnational reality.
