What the End Justifies

12.16.13

1 Peter 1.8-9 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (ESV)

Rather than take a fragment of a sentence and build something, I decided, today, to take a whole sentence and build something. Peter (Simon, son of John) is a very interesting character in the narrative of Scripture. He is one of the first-called disciples and he seemed to be like someone who was looking for desperately meaning and purpose in life.

It appears that Peter/Simon was a working class guy with a small but decent fishing business making his living by catching fish out of Lake Galilee, to the north and slight east of Jerusalem. Galilee is not a large body; it covers just over 64 square miles. Peter worked there and lived there and thought about God there, and one day ran into Him there on the shores of that Lake.

I’m not sure what Jews like Peter thought about salvation – or even if they did; but it appears Peter’s opinion of it changed because of his association with Jesus. And later in life as he dictated one of his letters to the Jews of the Dispersion, he told them that the outcome of their faith was the salvation of their souls. The means (what they were going through) justified the end.

In modern-day evangelical circles salvation is viewed as a done deal. In most modern evangelicalism it is accepted that we are saved by grace through faith. But Peter viewed salvation as a process. I think we need to heed what Peter was saying – salvation IS a process.

Well, Paul, what about the thief on the cross? Even for him, it was a process because we don’t really know if his conversion was fox-hole or jail-house; and we don’t have many details of the man’s life. I think it safe to say he’d had thoughts and those thoughts finally came together as he hung there desperate for his very next breath. Jesus took him seriously and that says enough. The end justified the means.

Salvation is the process of living a living faith in a living God with a living outcome of living access to eternal life – however long the process is between conversion and earthly death. I think we need to pay more attention to the process but not take our eyes off of the prize. The end justifies the means – nothing is truer when applied to our walk with Christ – whatever it takes to obtain the outcome of our faith: the salvation of our souls.

Lord, may I connect. I feel so unconnected and I humbly ask for connection. I lay my time talents and treasures upon Your altar and wait for You. Use me, guide me, and help me not to see You as anything other than my very Life. The end justifies Your means; don’t stay Your hand, my salvation depends on it! Amen.