As Christians, one of the greatest joys in our journey of faith is to know and be assured that our salvation is fully secured. Where does that assurance come from? It comes from our confidence in an absolutely sovereign, covenant-keeping God, who sent his Son, Jesus Christ, on behalf of sinners so that, as we look to him, the Holy Spirit testifies to us that we are the children of God (Romans 8:16). 

In other words, we can be sure of our salvation because it is God who works for it, and He has given that salvation to us as a grace. If we were to work hard to earn such salvation, we might live an anxious life, never being certain whether we can rightfully earn it or if one day we would lose it if we make a mistake.

However, receiving salvation from God will produce direct implications in how we live our lives. It is true that God has given us eternal life through His Son (1 John 5:11), but that eternal life is still yet to come. The reality is, we are still living in this temporary, fallen world. What I find interesting (and sometimes baffling), is that unlike other religions, as God’s chosen people, God never commands us to consecrate ourselves by removing ourselves from this evil world and go on a long pilgrimage to wait for Him.

Rather, there are many times in the Bible where His people are commanded to go into the world and to serve other people. For example, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and we are also called to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40). But to love someone is not as simple as paying lip service with empty words and promises. Rather, loving manifests itself through practical acts of service.

In this light, we can see that there is a relationship between our salvation with serving. Serving others, then, is a natural, and perhaps an expected thing that truly saved people would be doing on a regular basis. However, as our modern world demands us to live a busier and individualistic lifestyle, we also see that there are many many Christians who feel reluctant to serve. Excuses often go from “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m ready to serve yet” to “I don’t think I have the time to serve”.

But it is not my intention in this article to undermine these reasonings. In reality, serving others is easier said than done. The truth is, serving is a tiresome and painful business that can demand a lot of time and effort from us. And perhaps such demands are the reasons why some people don’t want to serve. 

But if we truly believe that we have been saved by God, the hardships in serving others should not drive us away from continuing to serve. I believe that the more we believe and sure that we have been saved, the more we should be eager and motivated to serve. How so? 

Our salvation means we no longer live for ourselves

In 1 Corinthians 6:20, Paul said that we were bought [by God] with a price. Relating to this verse, there is a famous saying that resonates with me until today: “salvation is free, but not cheap”. Yes, we receive our salvation freely because it is a gift. But that statement does not end just there. The giver (God) has bought that gift comes with a price, and that price is His Son’s blood.

To make the statement that “salvation is free” without thinking about the cost that God paid can be a dangerous pitfall, because we will take that salvation for granted and continue to live our lives the way we want to be. But when we ponder about it, the fact that God paid the price, meant that a transaction had occurred. To buy something means that the one who pays the price now owns the thing that they have paid for. Imagine you’re in a car dealership and have paid a high price for a new car, but after you pay the price you leave the car in the dealership and walk away with nothing. That’s rather foolish, isn’t it? The price you pay for the car should legitimate your ownership of that brand new car. The car will be yours automatically, because you paid for it.

So it is with us and God. God does not just do charity work of giving salvation freely and leaving us to ourselves again. No, instead, the grace we have received in our salvation means we are now no longer to live for ourselves. That’s why Paul said In 2 Corinthians 5:15 that “…[Christ] died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again”. Our salvation means that we are now living for God. 

That is why, serving others (as well as God) should be a natural thing that a saved person would do, because our salvation means that we think less about ourselves, and more about God and His kingdom. Even more so, Jesus Christ Himself while He was here on earth, was the poster boy of how His people should conduct their lives, for He Himself came to this world not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28).

And in Philippians 2:3-8, Paul reminded the church:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

The more we are sure with our salvation, the more we learn to think less about ourselves, but more on how we can serve other people, be it within the church or outside the church. 

Our salvation means we are now equipped to serve others

What is amazing about our God is that He does not just command us to love other people and leave us to figure things out ourselves. It would be exceptionally difficult for us to love others when we are still living in our sinful bodies. Instead, God equips us to be able to do His commands through the work of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22-24 said, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

One commonality you can find in these fruits of the Spirit is that they are outwardly-focused. What I mean is that these characteristics are the things that can only be manifested as we interact with other people. When we serve other people, conflicts, disagreements, and quarrels are inevitable. Sinners serving sinners is the perfect recipe for calamity. But it is also within these inevitable tensions where we can truly feel that the Holy Spirit is working within us.

Think about it, the fruits of gentleness, forbearance, and self-control can only be strongly felt when we are tested in a moment of conflict and tension. We don’t really need to be gentle nor have self-control when situations are nice and peaceful, right? But when our sinful tendencies want to be selfish and think about ourselves in these tensions, if we are truly certain that we have been saved by God, the work of the Holy Spirit will have us to resist those selfish tendencies, and instead replace it with the fruits of the Spirit. These fruits help us to love other people even when it is difficult, and the process of bearing these fruits also helps us to grow and mature in our faith as we continue to be sanctified through these situations.

Our salvation is not an excuse to be idle

I’m ending this article with an exhortation for all of us to ponder truly the meaning of our salvation, that the meaning can resonate in our lives and help us to have the will to serve. Our salvation is not an excuse to be idle. Having the guarantee that we are saved does not justify us to continue living a life in a self-centred way, and in so doing, becoming idle in doing the good works that God has commanded us to.

On the contrary, the Bible warns us multiple times to stay away from idleness and self-centeredness, for these things are marks that we are still living in the flesh. A person who has been born again, those who truly know that they have been saved with a costly price, will learn to live for the Lord for they now know that the lives they live are no longer for themselves, but for the sovereign and almighty God who loves them.