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A lot of times, when Christians talk about salvation, they talk about that one point in the past where they had their eyes open to God’s love and decided accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord, and follow him. This is certainly one aspect of salvation. It is the aspect that Jen Wilkens, in the quote above, refers to as going from “wretch to redeemed in an instant”. But salvation is not only something that happened to us one time in the past, but it is also something that happens to us on a daily basis (sanctification), and something we will experience ultimately when we are in the immediate presence of God our Father (glorification).

The apostle Peter writes about salvation in the first two chapters of his first letter. In chapter one, verses four and five, he says, “This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

This is the Believers great hope for the future, and ultimate salvation – the inheritance that is kept in heaven for us.

In chapter two, verse one and two, Peter writes, “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Here Peter is describing salvation as sanctification, a process. Not a one time thing, but a daily thing, where we grow like babies. Babies grow big and strong and develop because of their mothers nutritious milk. Baby Christians grow strong in the faith by constant ingestion of the Father’s milk, the Word of God. By taking in the the holy scriptures on a regular basis, we change from being conformed to this dark and wicked world, full of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander, and are transformed into God’s likeness, being able to recognize the good, the beautiful and the true (Rom. 12:1-2).

It’s kinda like the picture of Chambers lake above. At first glance it seems a beautiful scene with sunshine streaming through puffy white clouds onto a great body of water. But if you look closer, you can see that the trees on the big hill are black, not green. That’s because of a huge fire that passed through the area last year and burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

Living in this world can sometimes scorch our souls, leaving us burned over and lifeless. But when we encounter the wonderful, redeeming, healing love of Jesus, we begin to recover. We begin to see what life was intended to be. We start living life to the full and we have an eternity to glorify God and enjoy him.