Have you found the GPS of Life?

The wonderful 'package' of Salvation by Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone

I sometimes wonder why Jesus spoke of the 'kingdom of God', of being 'born again', of 'rest' in Him, of 'streams of living water'; or that the apostle Paul spoke of being 'justified by faith alone', of being 'united with Christ', of being 'in Him', of being 'together with Him'; or that Peter spoke of 'obtaining like precious faith', or being 'born again into a living hope'; or that the apostle James spoke of that 'good and perfect gift', 'birth through the message of truth', and of the 'unsearchable riches of Christ'?

Why does it sometimes seem as though Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and other parts of Scripture, especially the NT, all spoke of this 'great salvation' with such a varied range of terms?

Certainly they all spoke of one unifying theme, right?

I have since come to call this unifying theme the GPS of life. The 'Great Package of Salvation'! The ultimate 'path-finder'. The great compass of our life.

How do we navigate life and reach our destination? How do we even know what is our destination?

This GPS of divine origin tells us.

There must be a beginning. Otherwise we will be banging our heads against the philosophical wall expecting a response to the question, 'why is there something rather than nothing?' There is something. There isn't nothing. And that's our beginning point. Why is there something rather than nothing.

So where we do go for the answer to this question?

The ancients intuitively raised their hearts and heads to the heavens and said that the answer is from above. Interestingly, Jesus, in the gospel of John, chapter 3, in His discourse with Nicodemus, said, "I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

The commentaries (Gill and JFB) strongly asserts that this 'of water and spirit' has to to do with the 'operation of the Holy Spirit'. In fact, Jesus goes on in the next verse to say that 'what is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.'

This is so amazing. This truth is so amazing because one is reminded that this gospel of John begins with the words, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

And this in turn connects with the beginning of the Scriptures, in Genesis, that 'In the beginning God created...' And sure enough, with the formless earth, empty and dark, the Spirit of God was moving 'gently' on the face of the waters.

What a parallel to the desolate hearts of the unregenerate! They are without form, void and dark. This resonates so much with what the prophet Jeremiah said in chapter 17, verse 9 about the heart being deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Indeed, it needs the miracle of a 'new creation' (2 Cor 5:17).

From the time Adam and Eve blew the opportunity granted by God by His sheer grace to be co-regents with Him, mankind has been trying to find the solution to their ills, every other way apart from 'the Way' - Jesus Christ, the GPS of God.

Jesus was to be called 'Emmanuel', 'God with us'. No more would God use symbols, signs, prophets, priests, kings and law to bring Himself to us. He would be the Word enfleshed and in our face, 'full of grace and truth'.

This great package of salvation is found only in Christ. Among the rarest gems in this package is 'justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone'.

This gem is the gem which unlocks every single other gem in the glorious message of God's good news to people.

Not only can we be forgiven of our sins; not only are we rescued from the kingdom of satan and evil; not only are our spiritual debts re-paid; not only is the curse caused by sin rolled back, we are also brought into fellowship with God; we are brought into union with Christ, through His Spirit freely given to us when we believe on Him as our Redeemer; we are given everything due to Christ through His righteous and obedient life.

This super awesome gift of Christ at the moment of its inception regenerates our hearts. We are given a new nature. This new nature is of Christ's very nature - true man as God originally intended, and far greater than the former, and true God-man, in whom 'dwells ALL the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you (we) are complete in Him!

Such truth is too grand for our natural intelligence to grasp. And because of this, the apostle Paul prays in Eph 1:17-19, 'that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, Eph 1:18  the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Eph 1:19  and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us, the ones believing according to the working of His mighty strength.

Such is the wonder of the 'unsearchable riches of Christ' contained in this GPS.

How is this glorious truth applied in our lives on a daily basis?

1. In satisfying the gnawing hunger in the human heart for a reason for existing greater than itself and its world where it finds itself in.

2. In giving a deep and satisfying rest to our souls from its relentless need to be affirmed for itself. In Christ is our very true and real identity. In union with Christ, we find this deep and satisfying rest. Indeed Augustine was speaking of this when in his confessions, he called out to God, 'our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee!'

3. In receiving our justification for existence and purpose in Christ. No more do we need the justification of self or of others. We are secured in the approval of God of us, in Christ.

4. In receiving this renewed nature of true man, and of God, we are free to live unto Him, for His glory, living only to please Him, and walking worthy of Him alone.

5. With the Presence of the Person and Power of the Holy Spirit, given as a gift to all who believe, our achievements are motivated by His strength.

No wonder the apostle Paul could exult, 'in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us ' (Rom 8:37).

This conquering is only 'through Him'. Christ Jesus is the channel through which we are conquerors. The sustainability of being conquerors is only through faith. 

Faith itself is part of the package of salvation. This package of salvation comes purely from the heart of God the Father through His Son's finished work as mediated by His Spirit.

So in Christ we have everything we need for life and godliness, as the apostle Peter puts it. No wonder the early church could face persecution! In Christ they were victors! Nothing could stop them.