Adapted from a Daily Devotional, Discovering Christ, Donald Fortner, November 30 Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 16 -2 Corinthians 3

2. NIV We do not want you to be
uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles
we experienced in the province of Asia. We were
under great pressure, far beyond our ability to
endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed,
we felt we had received the sentence of death. But
this happened that we might not rely on ourselves
but on God, who raises the dead. He has
delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will
deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that
he will continue to deliver us,

3. That which Paul here states, with regard to his
deliverance from physical death by the hands of
wicked men, is a very good declaration of God’s
great work of grace in the salvation of our souls
by Christ.
Salvation is the deliverance of our souls from
the sentence of death by the grace of God.

4. “Salvation” is a big, big word.
It includes all that is involved in delivering our
souls from the sentence of death into the
freedom and glory of the children of God.
NIV
Paul speaks here of this salvation in different
tenses: past deliverance, present deliverance,
and future deliverance.
If you will search the Scriptures, you will find
that salvation is described throughout the Book
of God in various tenses.

5. Salvation is a work of the eternal past.
The Holy Spirit tells us all the works of God
involved in this thing called salvation “were
finished from the foundation of the world.”
NIV Now we who have believed
enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I
declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never
enter my rest.’” And yet his works have been
finished since the creation of the world.
God’s elect were chosen in eternal love.

6. NIV The Lord appeared to us in
the past, saying: “I have loved you with an
everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing
kindness.
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world.
NIV All inhabitants of the earth
will worship the beast—all whose names have
not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the
Lamb who was slain from the creation of the
world.

7. Accepted in the Beloved, and blessed with all
spiritual blessings in Him before the world
began.
NIV Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us in the heavenly realms with every
spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in
him before the creation of the world to be holy
and blameless in his sight.

8. In love he predestined us for adoption to
sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance
with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his
glorious grace, which he has freely given us in
the One he loves.
We were named the children of God, justified,
sanctified, preserved, and glorified in Christ by
God’s decree in old eternity.

9. NIV For those God foreknew he
also predestined to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brothers and sisters. And those he
predestined, he also called; those he called, he
also justified; those he justified, he also
glorified.

10. NIV He has saved us and called
us to a holy life—not because of anything we
have done but because of his own purpose and
grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus
before the beginning of time, but it has now
been revealed through the appearing of our
Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death
and has brought life and immortality to light
through the gospel.

11. NIV Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ
and a brother of James, To those who have
been called, who are loved in God the Father
and kept for Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace and
love be yours in abundance.

12. The Spirit of God also declares that our
salvation was finished by the obedience of
Christ as our Substitute in the historic past.
When our Savior cried, “ ,” it was
finished.
NIV When he had received the drink,
Jesus said, With that, he bowed
his head and gave up his spirit.

13. NIV He did not enter by means of
the blood of goats and calves; but he entered
the Most Holy Place once for all by his own
blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

14. Redemption and righteousness were performed
by Christ and finished by Christ when He died
as our Substitute upon the cursed tree.
He brought in everlasting righteousness for us,
put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself,
and made us the righteousness of God.
When He arose from the dead, we rose with
Him. When He sat down in heaven, we sat down
with Him.

15. The experience of grace in salvation is also
spoken of as something accomplished in the
historic past.
The experience of salvation involves that which
we come to experience personally in time.
It is the experience of the new birth,
the experience of receiving Christ.
We who now live unto God have been saved.

16. There came a time when we who were dead in
trespasses and in sins were born again by
God’s omnipotent mercy and grace, when we
were called from death to life by irresistible
mercy, a time when we were given faith in Christ
and sealed in Him by the Spirit of God.

17. NIV And you also were included
in Christ when you heard the message of truth,
the gospel of your salvation. When you
believed, you were marked in him with a seal,
the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit
guaranteeing our inheritance until the
redemption of those who are God’s
possession—to the praise of his glory.

18. NIV As for you, you were dead in
your transgressions and sins, in which you
used to live when you followed the ways of this
world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air,
the spirit who is now at work in those who are
disobedient. All of us also lived among them
at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh
and following its desires and thoughts.

19. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of
wrath. But because of his great love for us,
God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with
Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions—it is by grace you have been
saved. And God raised us up with Christ and
seated us with him in the heavenly realms in
Christ Jesus,

20. in order that in the coming ages he might
show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no
one can boast. For we are God's handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which
God prepared in advance for us to do.

21. NIV This poor man called, and the
Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his
troubles.
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
we received the atonement,
we received justification,
and we received life eternal.
Now we stand in grace experimentally.

22. NIV He was delivered over to
death for our sins and was raised to life for our
justification.
NIV Not only is this so, but we also
boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received
reconciliation.
If you would be justified before God in your
soul, if you would be saved, if you would have
Christ, you must believe on the Son of God.
You must receive him.

23. NIV He came to that which was his
own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to
all who did receive him, to those who believed
in his name, he gave the right to become
children of God— children born not of
natural descent, nor of human decision or a
husband’s will, but born of God.

24. This thing called salvation is frequently spoken
of in the present tense.
We who trust Christ are being saved.
Paul tells us the preaching of the gospel is the
power of God.
NIV For the message of the
cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of
God.

25. Now is our salvation nearer than when we
originally believed.
NIV And do this, understanding
the present time: The hour has already come for
you to wake up from your slumber, because our
salvation is nearer now than when we first
believed.

26. NIV He said to them,
NIV and this water symbolizes
baptism that now saves you also—not the
removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a
clear conscience toward God. It saves you by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

27. Yes, I have been saved; and I am being saved. I
have come to Christ; and I am coming to Christ.
NIV As you come to him, the living
Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God
and precious to him—

28. I am being saved in this sense:
NIV 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.
Being continually forgiven of all my sins by
God’s faithfulness, justice, and grace in Christ.

29. NIV If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness. If we
claim we have not sinned, we make him out to
be a liar and his word is not in us. My dear
children, I write this to you so that you will not
sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an
advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the
Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for
our sins, and not only for ours but also for the
sins of the whole world.

30. We rejoice in that which the Lord our God has
done for us and in us.
But, we rejoice to know that His work for us and
in us is not over yet.
There is more yet to come,
more certain to come.
NIV being confident of this, that
he who began a good work in you will carry it on
to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

31. The Scriptures speak often of our salvation in the
future tense too. Truly, with regard to this matter
of our salvation, “the best is yet to come.”
There is a very real sense in which the salvation of
our souls is a salvation yet to be revealed.
NIV Praise be to the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has
given us new birth into a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

32. and into an inheritance that can never perish,
spoil or fade. 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. In
all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a
little while you may have had to suffer grief in all
kinds of trials.

33. These have come so that the proven
genuineness of your faith—of greater worth
than gold, which perishes even though refined
by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor
when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you
have not seen him, you love him; and even
though you do not see him now, you believe in
him and are filled with an inexpressible and
glorious joy, for you are receiving the end
result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

34. Oh, what a revealing day,
that great day awaiting us in the end shall be!