Three and a half years ago my wife and I bought our first house. This was a big step for us, but after watching countless episodes of HGTV, we thought we were well prepared. However, there were a few surprises, one of them being all the “extras” that we didn’t plan on acquiring. Let me explain.

When you buy a home, you expect to get the home, and not a bunch of extra junk. The standard agreement tends to be that the previous homeowners will empty out everything so that when you take possession, it’s just the home. Well, that wasn’t the case with our home. When we showed up the day before closing, we discovered that the house had not been fully emptied of its contents. We notified the realtor about this, and someone came and filled a pick-up with some of the bigger stuff, but there was still lots more that we never bargained for. (By the way, we did get a piano out of the deal, which was nice!)

Sometimes we inherit things we want, and sometimes we inherit things we don’t want. In this brief blog post, I want to tell you about the most important thing you can inherit – salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.

When a person repents of their sin and comes to Christ in faith, they inherit everything of eternal value. And what is so amazing is that God’s salvation is a full salvation. You don’t get half or three quarters – it is the full meal deal. The believer does not have to work to stay in God’s good books. The believer does not have continue to earn God’s merit. That’s simply not how it works. Through the gospel, a person is accepted, loved, and adopted into the family of God. And it’s not because of how good they are. No, it is because of the grace and mercy of God.

All too often we don’t see the wonder of salvation. But through faith in the gospel, our trespasses and sins are no longer counted against us, we gain possession of the righteousness of Christ, and we have the assurance that we will spend all eternity in the presence of the Triune God. There is no illustration that even comes close to describing the infinite value of knowing God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The apostle Paul memorably describes what is gained in knowing Christ in this way: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:7-9). 

Most people esteem what the world can offer way too highly. In reality, it’s not that great. It’s like the gift that your kid or grandkid opened for Christmas – they played with it for a few days (or weeks), but eventually they got bored with it. At best, that is what the world offers us. Temporary pleasure, temporary gratification, and that is it. But God, in Christ, gives us everything of eternal value.

Let me encourage you to consider the wonder of God’s saving work. Scripture calls it “such a great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3). It is truly beyond belief!

⁴ But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  (Titus 3:4-7)