Salvation from . . . and to . . .

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of salvation. When we say salvation what do we mean? Often I think we limit the definition of salvation to a rescue from hell. I mean, this is what is preached in many churches; that is, if you don’t believe in Jesus or accept him as Lord, you will spend eternity in hell. Salvation, when defined this way, has very little to do with our lives in the here and now. I think this is why so many of us live our lives the exact same way our non-Christian friends do.

Dallas Willard writes this in his book The Divine Conspiracy:

“The sensed irrelevance of what God is doing to what makes up our lives is the foundational flaw in the existence of multitudes of professing Christians today. They have been led to believe that God, for some unfathomable reason, just thinks it appropriate to transfer credit from Christ’s merit account to ours, and to wipe out our sin debt, upon inspecting our mind and finding that we believe a particular theory of the atonement to be true—even if we trust everything but God in all other matters that concern us (italics mine).
It is left unexplained how it is possible that one can rely on Christ for the next life without doing so for this one, trust him for one’s eternal destiny without trusting him for ‘the things that relate to Christian life.’ Is this really possible? Surely not! Not within one life.
In the Gospels, “the gospel” is the good news of the presence and availability of life in the kingdom, now and forever, through reliance on Jesus the Annointed.
Accordingly, the only description of eternal life found in the words we have from Jesus is ‘This is eternal life, that they [his disciples] may know you, the only real God, and Jesus the anointed, whom you have sent’ (John 17:3). This may sound to us like “mere head knowledge,” But the biblical “know” always refers to an intimate, personal, interactive relationship.
The eternal life of which Jesus speaks is not knowledge about God but an intimately interactive relationship with him."

So, if salvation is not just the promise of eternal abundant life after I die, but is also the promise of abundant, eternal life in the here and now, how come I often feel like life falls short of abundant? I believe it is because I often choose to live life on my own, apart from Christ. My pride takes over, and I decide I want to live life for myself! I choose to make myself and idol. True life, abundant life, eternal life can only be found as we seek an interactive, personal, intimate relationship with Christ in all things and recognize that He is Lord of our lives.