in my last entry i raised the question of our salvation being for our ultimate gain or God's ultimate gain. i made the comment that i believe that it is contradicting of itself to say both. this is why i make very clear that what i say is NOT inerrant, NOT biblical fact; just something i am wrestling with. thanks SSU!!!
the reason i said what i did in my original question is because of the aspect of scripture that calls, after salvation, for us to die to self (which is all over scripture). with this fact alone, it makes no sense if salvation is for OUR ultimate gain.
(but this fact has to play into all the other facts of scripture. scripture works together as God's spoken word. i sometimes fail when it comes to putting my interpretations into the context of scripture as a whole.)
as i have been reading, praying, reading some more, praying some more...in seeing scripture as a whole...it seems our gain/happiness/blessedness and our sacrifice both work together to bring glory to God. it seems that our ultimate happiness and God's ultimate happiness are the same; us sacrificing ourselves for the glory of God so that God may bring us great joy.
our salvation is to be used by God for His glory to bring us satisfaction...of us having more of Jesus.
i guess i get so confused when i look at the christian community and see how there is a great number of people using their salvation as a stepping stone in life but are missing God all together. in my eyes, it seems that their salvation stops at their salvation experience. that's where the heart of my question was raised. (today) it seems pretty evident that ALL of God is for our happiness/blessedness (check out the sermon on the mount of Jesus sake...literally (specifically the beatitudes)). it seems you can't separate out our ULTIMATE happiness vs. Gods ULTIMATE happiness...their one thought.
Posts
