Rejoice in God’s Salvation

Isaiah 25:9, Titus 2:13-14

As we approach this Easter/Resurrection season, let’s take a reflective look at our Old Testament verse Isaiah 25:9 which tell us the believers of Isaiah’s day had waited faithful for the Lord and when His kingdom came they were going to rejoice in the salvation of the Lord. This brings to mind several points, which are:
(a) The believers of Isaiah’s day had enough faith in God for His deliverance/salvation. Old Testament believers had a right relationship with God and a reverence of Him to wait on His deliverance. This is why the Old Testament believers could boldly state, “this is our God: we have waited for him, and he will save us.” They knew God had the power to save them and they were willing to wait patiently for His deliverance. Old Testament believers knew that if they did not experience physical deliverance during their life time, they would have spiritual deliverance in eternity, and then they could rejoice because salvation was their. What a victory!
(b) God had promised a saviour; it was forty-two generations before this promise was fulfilled. God kept His word and gave His best to atone the sins of the world. Jesus entered this world through the gateway of humanity by a virgin birth. His sole purpose was to provide salvation to mankind.
(c) Old Testament believers were not perfect; when they sinned or sin entered their lives they presented animal sacrifices to God in faith and sincere repentance designed for forgiveness. They were looking forward to the cross where as believers after Christ’s death are looking back on the cross and don’t have to offer animal sacrifices, simply go to God in sincere prayer.
(d) The final reflective point is Old Testament believers had enough faith to believe salvation was at hand and His grace was sufficient.

We have taken a reflective look at Old Testament believers and witness their faith in God through scripture, we can relate to their rejoicing. If we pose the question, what is joy? According to Webster joy can be defined as a feeling of great pleasure of well-being: gladness. The next series of questions are what is the reason for the people’s gladness? What initiated the reason for rejoicing? In an attempt to answer the first question of what was the reason for the people’s gladness or rejoicing was they had been promised a saviour. Old Testament prophets’ messages had taught believers about God and His salvation; they had come to know that salvation meant deliverance from sin. Believers of the Old Testament era completely trusted God for their salvation. Therefore, believing God as they did gave believers reasons to rejoice. The answer to the second question is what initiated the rejoicing; the belief of knowing the blessings of salvation was reasons to rejoice.
We know there are blessing in salvation raises a question, what are some of the blessings in salvation and how do one receive these blessings? First, salvation is provided to us by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, which God freely give. God extends salvation to us, but we must respond to His gift in faith. Then what are the blessings of salvation?
(a) Believers receive forgiveness of their sins. Believers have the assurance of knowing that we passes from a spiritual death to a spiritual life and sin had no power over us any longer and that power has been transferred to God’s power. Salvation brings the believer into a new personal relationship with God. Sin will result in humanity being eternally separated from God.
(b) Believers will have a one-to-one relationship with God as our Father and Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Salvation will cause believers to count ourselves dead to sin and submit ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. A daily anointing of the Holy Spirit will aid believers to live holy lives for the advancement of God’s kingdom.
(c) Finally, salvation assures believers of God’s deliverance from His coming wrath and believers will share in Christ’s glory some day to receive our resurrected bodies. Additionally, believers will receive our just reward as faithful preservers to the end. Salvation assures believers of spending eternity with Jesus Christ. What a blessing!
Believers of the past, present and future can rejoice in knowing we have salvation in God through Jesus Christ. It was God’s love and Christ’s shed blood at Calvary made it all possible. REJOICE!