The Journey of Salvation

When one gets born again, it’s the soul that gets delivered. The body however, as it continues to live on the earth awaits its final redemption on the day of the rapture. This is a day when the perishing bodies will be transformed for the saints to have an eternal body. Not the earthly tent that is fleshy and prone to sin and error.

Just like a journey to a destination takes various steps before reaching a destination, salvation involves various stages that are important to attain and many hurdles to overcome before reaching the final destination, which is attaining the full stature of Christ.

Understanding this is important for long-time Christians, long born again, not to be complacent, and for the new believers not to be overwhelmed by the arrows of the devil, who constantly battles them, wanting to show them that they are worse because they are usually at a stage the scripture refers to as elementary steps of salvation.

The mature Christians are awakened to the fact that even though they have covered a bigger part of the journey, so long as they have not arrived at their spiritual destination yet, anything can happen, and so they need to cling to Christ until the end to have proper celebrations.

“Ezekiel 47
The River From the Temple

1The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.

3As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits a and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, b where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. 11But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

The Lord clearly illustrates the stages of the Holy Spirit’s infilling. He clearly shows that it also happens in stages; hence, overcoming one step leads you to another until the final stature of Christ is attained. This removes the state of conceit from saints who received Christ a while ago and hopelessness from recent converts