Salvation What salvation means to me is being saved from the power of sin and from hell, which is the eternal penalty of sin. Through the process of salvation, we are therefore freed from everything and anything that could possibly prevent us from enjoying eternal life with God. Bible.org’s essay on salvation paragraph five stated that “The word “salvation” is the translation of the Greek word “soteria” which is derived from the word meaning “savior”. It goes on to say “salvation is described as the work of God rescuing man from his lost estate. On the other hand, salvation describes the estate of man who has saved and who is vitally renewed and made a partaker of the inheritance of the saints.” God gave his children a chance of redemption so that one day we all can live with him. For us to enter to the kingdom of heaven we must accept Jesus Christ in our life and if you think about it, it really is not that bad of a trade.
Deciding to change your life and become saved is a very difficult decision to make because a lot comes with giving your life to Christ. When I was younger I had a friend named Tony, we both attended the same church. We met at the age of five at our church summer camp and ever since then we were literally inseparable. By the time we were eight years old Tony and I accepted Jesus Christ into our lives and were baptized within the same month if I’m not mistaken. We both loved the Lord, we sung in the choir, participated in church plays, and even ushered on youth Sundays together. As time went on Tony and I starting seeing each other less and less, there was even a rumor that he was getting involved with the streets. Never the less we always would hang out together at the youth choir conference. My pastor’s wife worked with the school board in Pinellas County and she would organize a huge choir with all the youth from around the city to sing at our church. At one point, Tony stopped coming to church all together and I would only see him at the choir conference. I was sixteen and he was fifteen, and we hung out like we were little kids again, but unfortunately after that particular youth conference was finished I would never see my friend breathing again. Tony was shot twelve times while trying to invade someone’s home he was only fifteen. The reason for my story is simple.
Where did my friend go, meaning did he go to heaven or hell? I witnessed with my own eyes that Tony loved the lord. Let some of the youth kids tell it they said that “he lost God’s favor because he ventured off into the darkness”. Psalms 27:1 reads “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear.” Whether Tony was doing right or wrong wasn’t God with him, even when those twelve flashes were going off in his face. He was baptized believing that when he died he would be welcomed in the house of are father. Just because the last few years of his life he drifted away from church means that he will be forever damned, if that is the case what is the point of salvation. My Spiritual Theology book on page 84 states that “Any attempt to deal with the variegated vocabulary of salvation must set certain limits.” I may have interrupted this wrong but what I took from it was, just the word salvation has so much meaning that we can’t even fully comprehend what salvation is and what does for us. So, I can’t fully answer what it means to be saved biblically no matter what I read, because my questions of this matter won’t be answered until I see my friend again.
When you accept Jesus Christ into your life you are saved from eternal damnation. This does not mean that the devil still can’t come after you; in fact I feel that the devil try’s to destroy your faith when you fully commit to God. Just as the devil tried to discourage Jesus while he was praying to his father when he knew he would soon be crucified. The Devil is after all of us twentfour-seven and any of us can succumb to his tricks of deception. Hell is a place for