If I were to ask you to sit down and write some of the things you are passionate about I wonder what they would be. Perhaps it would be that you are passionate about your spouse. Or maybe you are passionate about your job. But I would hope if you are a Christian your number one passion would be related to some aspect of Jesus Christ.
Have you ever thought about some of the things that God is passionate about? While God is certainly passionate about His relationship with you and me, He is also, I believe, passionate with using us in ways that will bring Him glory. But when it comes to His highest passion I agree with what Max Lucado once shared: “The purpose of the Bible? Salvation. God’s highest passion is to get His children home. His book, the Bible, describes His plan of salvation. The purpose of the Bible is to proclaim god’s plan and passion to save His children.”1
Our God is on a singular mission to do everything in His power to “get His children home.” And I believe the Bible is His most powerful vehicle to awaken our desperately wicked hearts to the beauty and wonder of Jesus and our own sinful nature.
I know in my own life I came to Christ mostly through my reading of the Scriptures. As I read the Bible I learned how sinful I was and how much God loved me. This combination, along with the Bible’s salvation plan, helped me to come to faith in Jesus. For other Christians they may have had very little contact with a physical Bible, but heard the message of the gospel and salvation from a friend, relative, or even a stranger. But even in this case the person who shared the gospel got this wonderful message from the Bible. In either case it’s the Bible that describes God’s plan of salvation.
And the main way God exercises His highest passion of getting His children home is by sharing the plan of salvation in the Bible and/or having another believer share the gospel message. My friends the Bible lays out God’s plan of salvation so beautifully that if an open-minded person reads this book, backed with the prayers of the saints for that individual’s salvation, I believe that we maximize the chance they will come to Christ. And that’s why giving a Bible to someone is perhaps the greatest gift you can give.
In closing, some say that when you give blood, through a transfusion, you are giving someone the gift of life. But, I say, when you give someone a Bible you are giving them the chance to find eternal life!
“The purpose of the Bible? Salvation.”
I probably sound like a broken record when I state my question, “Salvation, what next?”
Then, I go back to the beginning where God lays out his “passion” for mankind
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion.”
Since the Fall, salvation of souls had to happen to see His original plan continue on earth. The grace of salvation empowers us
“in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Sin had to be defeated but what is sin? Lawlessness! God is glorified when we keep His law and apply it to all of life, hence, the famous title Redemption, Accomplished and Applied. God wants both. We, who will inherit eternal life, will receive 100 fold in the new world, the “regeneration.”
As the meek, we inherit the earth, where kings and discipled nations bring their treasures. Salvation is not just the goal but it is a lifetime of glorifying Him.
Otherwise, we would see a nation get “saved,” then move on to the next but were told to “disciple the nations.” That’s being schooled in God’s law and learning how to apply it to all things in life. Getting saved is just the beginning.