Salvation belongs to the LORD. (Ps. 3:8)

Truly my soul waits upon God. From Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved. (Ps. 62:1-2)

It is amazing how profound the statements of scripture prove to be. How often we read, "from him comes my salvation," and, "salvation belongs to the LORD!" And yet how easy it is to read right by them.

When you read, "salvation belongs to the LORD," what does that mean to you? Maybe you do as I once did, and assume that it is talking about the fact that Jesus is our only Savior. And if you are already saved, well, then this is probably a passage that you don’t feel applies much to you. It is for an unsaved person. But if we really understood what God is getting at with that phrase, it would, in fact, revolutionize our spiritual lives.

If there is one thing that God wants us to see, not as unbelievers, but AS SAVED PEOPLE, it is that from Him alone comes our salvation. If there is one Truth that would set us free it is that one – that salvation belongs to the Lord. And ONLY to Him.

Of course what I am talking about here includes getting saved. But it extends far beyond that. Have we realized that GOD ALONE is our hope – for everything in this life? Have we realized it to the point where we LIVE LIKE IT? Getting saved OUGHT to head us in the right direction with regards to this Truth, but so often it does not. Christians often take years and years before they discover that salvation belongs only to God; before they finally grasp that salvation comes only from Him.

Now what exactly am I talking about? For no Christian is ever going to deny that salvation belongs only to God! Nope. Never. But I am talking about a dimension that God wants to bring us into that will prove that this is true to such an extent that it will be made part of us. We will begin to live as if God alone is our salvation.

As stated, if there is one thing God is trying to show us, it is that HE ALONE is our salvation. Because when we finally become convinced of that Truth, we will be set free from every other object of our devotion, faith, and security.

God wants to prove to us, through experience, that He alone is our salvation. He wants to prove that to us so that we can live in the freedom of that Truth. One of the big objectives of God in any trial, is that we come to the place where He alone is the object of our faith. Before that, He isn’t. This doesn’t mean we don’t want Him to be, indeed, we probably even say the words, and pray that He might be. But He just isn’t, at first, because it doesn’t come natural. Rather, it is natural to put our faith in THINGS, or to put it in OURSELVES.

What does it mean to put your faith in yourself? Well, it could mean that you think you have what it takes to get out of trouble. Or to be self-sufficient. But most Christians don’t take that route, because it is clearly wrong. But there is another way to put your faith in yourself, that is quite common. It is to present to God something about yourself – as a reason why He ought to save you. Indeed, some of us present something to God about ourselves which we think ought to OBLIGATE Him to save us.

Can we see that this is faith in ourselves? It is. Our faith isn’t in God, but in the thing about ourselves which we present to God. THAT, we think, will convince God to do what we want Him to do. Our faith is therefore in ourselves.

What might we present to God? Ironically, the most common thing we present to God to convince Him to respond to us is OUR FAITH.

Get that. We know we need to believe God or we will get nowhere with Him. So we, umm, believe. We say, "Here is a bunch of my faith God. I believe you. I trust you. I put this into Your hands. Now you must help me. You promised that if I believed You would do it." It is almost as if we are trying to cut a deal with God. We give Him the faith He wants, and He gives us the help we want.

Of course, this isn’t faith in God. It is really faith in our faith – indeed, faith in ourselves. Our whole reliance is not upon God, but upon the fact that our faith is good enough to get Him moving for us. In effect, we aren’t seeing that salvation belongs to God, or that He alone is our salvation. We still think that salvation is in our faith – in what we have to offer God in exchange FOR His salvation.

God wants to bring us to the place where we see that we have NOTHING to present to Him as a reason why He must help us. Get that. It’s vital to see. Only when we finally see that there is nothing we have to give to God – not even our faith – will we understand that salvation belongs to God. Then we will be able to do nothing less than throw ourselves upon His mercy, and leave ourselves in His hands.

Salvation belongs only to God. It is not vested in anything else. Not in me. Not in my faith. Not in anything I can do. If I want salvation in any matter, I have to go to God empty-handed – with nothing to offer. I will then see that salvation comes only from Him, simply because He is good enough to give it by His grace.

Never say that you trust God if you are not willing to come to Him empty-handed. If you still think you must come with merits, credentials, or arguments, as proofs as to why God should help you, you don’t trust Him. You aren’t trusting that He is loving enough to help you without those things.

The Bible says that all the promises of God find their YES in Him. Not in us – God doesn’t say YES because of something in us. The promises of God find their affirmation and certainly in Him alone. Salvation is in Him alone. He doesn’t need to be convinced to help us if it is His will to do so. And if it isn’t His will to do what we want Him to do, then nothing we offer is going to change that either. Are we willing to stand before God naked and simply say, "Salvation belongs to you God. You are my only salvation. Into your hand I commit my life."

It is a fact that there are times in the purposes of God where He will not help us until we are done trying to give Him reasons why He is obligated to do so. Have you ever said to God, "I believed You, and so you must help me."? Have you ever thought about all the things you have "sacrificed for God?" How about the fact that you have done good works or served Him? We can think of a thousand things about ourselves which ought to obligate God to help us. But God is obligated to do nothing. He helps us because He wants to. It is because He wants to that He has given us promises to begin with.

Too often we surrender things to God because they are going wrong, or we are reaping the consequences of our own actions, and we want God to fix them. But true surrender means I relinquish ownership over myself – not just the problems that are too big for me.

We either storm the throne of God on the basis of our merits, or we fear approaching it because of the lack of merits. God says nothing ever depended on our merits to begin with. At the end of the day, God helps us simply because He wants to.

It is only when we finally see God that we will see that there was never anything about us that obligated Him. Then God is free to bless us because we will not say it was because of our faith, our works, or our suffering. We will know it was because of Him, and despite us.

All of these things boil down to the simple Truth that salvation belongs to God alone, and that He alone is our salvation. Not because of anything we are, or do. But because of Himself. As the Psalmist often says, GOD IS OUR SALVATION.*