Salvation Has Now Been Sent

Paul speaking in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, from Acts 13 - “Men and brothers, sons of the race of Abraham, and all among you who fear God, it is to us that this message of salvation has now been sent!” 

Do you ever have the experience, when you’re reading through the scriptures, of reading through a particular verse or sentence, and, when you get to the punctuation mark at its ending, there’s something inside you that says, “There’s something more about that verse”? Do you know what I’m talking about – that sensation? Well, it happened to me strongly with those words, that verse: verse 26. (And I’d love to remind you that you should always stop and wait upon Him whenever you yourself have that experience while reading the Word. For, nine times out of ten, I bet you, it’s the Holy Spirit working out His ways within you…)
 
So what, for me, did I learn from waiting with that last verse? The importance of the present moment, over and above the past or future, when it comes to the full salvation Jesus has already bought us. Here’s what I mean: For Paul’s hearers in the synagogue that day, “salvation” from God was entirely a system of promises from Yahweh, anchored in their people’s Old Testament past; and a distant someday-hope, glowing out there in the ever unknowable future. But now – right now – Paul tells them, even as they sit in their uncomfortable seats in their small local synagogue, “it is to us” – meaning himself, Barnabas and them – “that this message of salvation has now been sent.” Can you imagine hearing that? That not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today you may – right now – interact with the message that will save and set you free?
 
I think the reason I’m so fiery about this idea is because I realize how often we don’t properly interact right now – not in the past, not in the future – with all that Jesus offers. We conflate “knowledge about” with Knowing Him, and wishful hopefulness with Hope; and we’re so often left with a present “experience” of Jesus that has nothing to do with the experiential, experimental moment-by-moment, day-by-day life in Union with Him that is actually what this is meant to be.
 
But is that what we want?