Following Christ

   So I started reading Following Christ by Stephen E. Robinson today and already it is connecting to so many things I've been learning and reassuring me of so much that I've felt about Christ's presence in my life and what it means to turn to Him.
   The first chapter is called "Getting to the Kingdom" and it goes through how in accepting Christ, believing, and entering into a covenant of baptism with him we are saved NOW. The gates of the kingdom of God are already behind us. We are IN.

"Nothing that happens subsequently can be understood as helping you get into the kingdom, or earning your way into the kingdom, or contributing to your getting to the kingdom -- because you are already there. It logically follows that for those who have been born again, the critical question is not one of getting into the kingdom but of staying in the kingdom -- enduring to the end" (17).

   Of course this is something I already knew right? I mean, I knew that I was sanctified and justified through the atonement of Christ and that the only step left was for me to endure to the end and I would be saved. But I didn't think seriously enough what it means that I am already saved... I hadn't considered the POWER and COMFORT Robinson describes that comes from knowing "that as I labor for Christ, I labor as a son, encircled in the arms of his love, from a position of safety in his kingdom" (18).  It really does change how I see my standing with Him to think of it this way; that choices I make and my feeble efforts to be perfect are my decision to stay in His kingdom. (Or in the case of sin, to leave His kingdom.) 

   AND I need to trust myself to be able to remain faithful as I am learning to trust His commitment to love and help me. I am His after all.