August 23, 2022
Daily Devotion:
"Saved and Safe..."
Ezekiel 33:13
New International Version
13 If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.
Are you sure you are going to heaven? Before any of us answers that question, perhaps we would do well to take a deep breath and approach the question more thoughtfully than we normally do. For believers in Christ, the usual immediate answer is, "Yes, absolutely! I've been saved." But If you were to ask "Are you righteous?" you'd likely hear a far more hesitant response acknowledging the obvious, that none of us is wholly righteous. Although it is certainly true that our "righteousness" is imputed from Christ, there must also be something equally true about today's text. Importantly, if our eternal security is dependent on God's own faithfulness, here God says that he has already assured this righteous man that he will surely live. Yet despite God's Promises, it is obvious that this man can also surely die! The alarming message is that even a long life of righteousness could end up counting for nothing. Where one lapses irreversibly into a life of evil, a previous life of righteousness is no guarantee of spiritual security.
How, then, can we be sure of our salvation? As our text suggests, the answer lies in where we put our trust. If we're trusting in our own righteousness, we are only as safe as each day's righteousness. Yet as strange as it might seem, it only gets worse if we are trusting in our salvation itself to save us! As Paul reminds us when he asks, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" (Romans 6:1), there is a fine line between trusting in our salvation and trading on our salvation. In the end, certainty about heaven is all about trusting God, not ourselves.
The compelling question is: Have I ever seriously considered the subtle distinction between saved and safe?
