The call of salvation is a call to death

You see, the call of salvation is a call to death. It is the unglamorous part of salvation—the terms and conditions, so to speak, in the fine print at the bottom of Grace’s contract page.

You have to die. To self. You have to lay down your rights, opinions, and preferences, and pick up God’s standard.

When you get saved, you denounce Satan and pledge allegiance to God. From then on, it is war—naturally. Make no mistake: the business of salvation is that of charged cosmic politics. The base of this war is at God’s altar, under His refining fire.

God’s refining fire is not a decorative piece. It is deadly. It burns away self, sears off pride, and melts rebellion into obedience. Let me make this unequivocally clear: God wants to burn you alive and kill you so that the Christ in you is visible. It is in the fine print of the contract. Read your Bible.

Too many people have crawled off the altar under the unbearable heat of God’s refining fire. It is not easy to be a living sacrifice, and no less one that God intends to kill.

Therefore, the person who has not been cooked at God’s altar and salted to His taste—one whose inner metal has not thereafter been dropped in the fire for his forging into a tool purified and shaped for His use—inevitably misrepresents God.

People like this walked off the altar half-cooked and unrefined. They are a mix of off-flavours: Part God | Part world. A stark contrast to the unparalleled beauty that comes from God’s purification, they are a grotesque chimaera of Sin and Holiness.

They are neither of God nor the world, bearing an unholy amalgam of both God’s distinct DNA in their spirit and the devil’s sin-muddied fingerprints all over their mind, body, and soul.

People like this are saved. Yet, God’s moral standard offends them. God’s call to election and purity offends them. God’s accountability system offends them. God’s call to separation and consecration offends them. God’s behavioural standard offends them. God’s evangelistic assignment to preach the Gospel and make disciples offends them.

Only the devil can create such an ugly masterpiece.