Weekly insights from Chuck Colson and great saints of the past and present

Being saved is more than just being forgiven.

“This is the heart of Christian conversion. It is what we mean by the term, salvation, or what Christians frequently speak of as being born again. Our past sins are not only forgiven, but we are transformed to live a new life with God’s power and grace…In a sincere conversion you will experience changing affections and habits. Things that used to seem appealing no longer do; things that weren’t appealing now are. If your faith is alive, you will experience increasing discontent and conviction over sins of the past and will respond with a genuine desire to turn away, to be changed.”
-Chuck Colson, The Faith

“We are a compound of both body and soul. The one part is visible, the other invisible. In the same way, our cleansing also is two-fold, that is, by water and Spirit. The one is received visibly in the body, the other concurs with it invisibly and apart from the body…The one that comes to the aid of our first birth makes us new instead of old and like God instead of what we now are. It recasts us without fire and creates us anew without breaking us up.”
-Gregory of Nazianzus, On Holy Baptism

“…how much more ought we to clean the field of our heart from the harmful motions of the vices, and to believe that it is not enough for us to till our body’s clay with the toil of fasts and vigils, unless we are anxious above all to correct our vices and form our characters, seeing we believe our hope of harvest is laid up not on earth but in heaven?”
-Columbanus, Sermon II

“Thousands are congratulating themselves, and even blessing God that they are devout worshippers, when at the same time they are living in an unregenerate Christless state, having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. He who presides over a system which aims at nothing higher than formalism, is far more a servant of the devil than a minister of Christ.”
-Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students

“In soteriology we deal with the application to us of the redemption Christ has wrought for us. Sin being what it is, it would be useless to have salvation lie ready at hand unless it were also applied to us. Inasmuch as we are dead in trespasses and sins, it would do us no good to have a wonderful life-giving potion laid next to us in our coffin. It would do us good only if someone actually administered the potion to us.”
-Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith

“Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”
-Matthew 7:20

For more insight to this subject, get the book, What Does It Mean to Be Saved?, by John G. Stackhouse, Jr., from our online store.

Chuck Colson's The Faith is available through our online bookstore.