By Pastor Tony Ontanyon
People have the goal and the right to achieve and look for salvation. What is salvation in our Methodist context? Salvation is not to go to heaven, or having eternal love for God, or reaching into everlasting satisfaction, joy or happiness. We are Methodist, and salvation is the whole redemptive work of God in human life. We are saved by faith.
Salvation for John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is a process; it is not an event that happens once in your life, and through a conversion from the old life to a new life in Christ. It is a process through our entire life where it could be moments of going through the desert, the valleys, and moments of abundance in our Christian life to achieve spiritual and practical growth. And this process is a journey with a goal which is perfect love with God and one another. Salvation does not consist of avoiding going to hell because it is not an afterlife experience, but a present gift offer by God to everyone where God’s grace makes possible to people needing an answer. “God offers salvation, and it is the person’s responsibility to respond to it.” The emphasis of Wesley defining salvation is: “By salvation I mean, not barely deliverance from hell, or going to heaven, but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health … the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness, injustice, mercy, and truth.”
Join us this coming Sunday, March 1st, 2020, to explore and share the meaning of salvation within our Methodist Church. Waiting for you at 10 am at the “Old Stone Building.” 140 Tennille St, Caliente, NV.
People have the goal and the right to achieve and look for salvation. What is salvation in our Methodist context? Salvation is not to go to heaven, or having eternal love for God, or reaching into everlasting satisfaction, joy or happiness. We are Methodist, and salvation is the whole redemptive work of God in human life. We are saved by faith.
Salvation for John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is a process; it is not an event that happens once in your life, and through a conversion from the old life to a new life in Christ. It is a process through our entire life where it could be moments of going through the desert, the valleys, and moments of abundance in our Christian life to achieve spiritual and practical growth. And this process is a journey with a goal which is perfect love with God and one another. Salvation does not consist of avoiding going to hell because it is not an afterlife experience, but a present gift offer by God to everyone where God’s grace makes possible to people needing an answer. “God offers salvation, and it is the person’s responsibility to respond to it.” The emphasis of Wesley defining salvation is: “By salvation I mean, not barely deliverance from hell, or going to heaven, but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health … the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness, injustice, mercy, and truth.”
Join us this coming Sunday, March 1st, 2020, to explore and share the meaning of salvation within our Methodist Church. Waiting for you at 10 am at the “Old Stone Building.” 140 Tennille St, Caliente, NV.