Not everything needs to be tweetable!

Recently I read Colossians 1:13-14,  “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  As I often do, I started to tweet a thought from my devotional time:  “What we are saved from is not nearly as great as what we are saved to.”  Twitter is good for it’s purpose, bumper sticker size updates on our lives and thoughts.  The problem is, sometimes what God is saying to us cannot and should not be whittled down to 140 characters for simplicities sake.  You know folks, not everything needs to be tweetable!  

“What we are saved from is not nearly as great as what we are saved to.”  As I began to dwell on that thought, I began to think about what we are saved from.  I quickly remembered the point in my journey before I choose to follow the Lord.  Were there good times?  Certainly.  Friends?  Yep.  Did I attend church?  In the words of Sarah Palin, “you betcha!”  Yet, despite a relatively good life there was a sense of emptiness that I couldn’t shake.  There was a sense of incompleteness... a sense that there was something more.  What I didn’t realize at the time is that the Bible said I was “dead in my trespasses.”  I stood condemned before God because of my sin.  Yikes!  And despite what some might believe about the reality or eternal nature of Hell, according to the Bible, Hell is a very real and eternal place.  Mark 9:48 describes hell as a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.  Daniel 12:2 describes it as a place of shame and everlasting contempt.  Mark 9:43 describes it as an unquenchable fire.  Colossians 1:21 says we were alienated and hostile in mind.  The picture the Bible paints is not only bleak, it is damning.  So in no way do I intend to diminish what I was saved from in my potential tweet.  It is just what I am saved to is so unbelievable!

So, what about what we are saved to?  Of course there is that whole “heaven” thing.  But becoming a follower of Christ is so much more than ‘pie in the sky when you die’.  I mean, heaven is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.  Golden streets and pearly gates will mean nothing compared to being able to fall at the feet of Jesus in worship.  Though I will spend eternity in the presence of God, I will never reach a complete understanding of His depths.  But, like I said, it’s more than ‘pie in the sky’.  We get to enjoy fellowship with Him now!  We get to be a part of the bride of Christ, His Church!  Again, let’s visit the Bible for what it says about what we are “saved to.”  We are in the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).  Ephesians 2:5 says we are made alive in Christ.  We experience His rest (Matthew 11:28-30).  2 Corin. 5:18 says that we have reconciliation with God.  1 John 1:8-9 says that we have forgiveness and are cleansed in Christ.  What we are saved to is something that we will never really comprehend.  The blessings that are ours in Christ are incomprehensible and inexhaustible.  No tweet or Facebook status update would be able to do it justice.  

So, which is it?  Which one is greater; what we are saved from or what we are saved to?  Perhaps it is best to not think of one without considering the other.  More clearly, maybe each one is best understood in light of the other.  To get a proper appreciation for what we are saved to (if a proper appreciation is even attainable), we must consider what we are saved from.  We will never appreciate appropriately that we are alive in Christ without understanding that we were once dead in our sins!  We will never appreciate that we are part of the kingdom of light without recognizing the dark background of the kingdom of darkness that haunts our past.  What a great God we serve who pursues His creation even through their darkest days!