August 25

now that you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. — 1 Pet 1:9 BSB

What a blessed, what a glorious end this is! What a prize to win, what a victory to gain, what a crowning conclusion to all that faith has believed, hope expected, or love embraced! No matter the doubts and fears that have troubled the mind, no matter the sore temptations that have distressed the soul, no matter the deep afflictions, painful trials, heavy guilt, and hard bondage that have brought you low—so low that it seemed impossible to rise again—still, the faith that is God’s gift and work endures through it all. And there is a blessed end waiting for that faith: the salvation of the soul.

Think about what this salvation encompasses and implies. Reflect on what you are saved from and what you are saved unto. Neither can be fully understood this side of eternity. Perhaps you have caught glimpses of hell, and maybe you have glimpsed a taste of heaven. You may have had some experience of the coming wrath or some taste of the glory that is to be revealed. But these are only small tastes. The full, terrifying reality of God’s wrath, the horrors of a guilty conscience, and the terror of falling into the hands of the consuming fire have not been fully known, for nature could not bear it.

Likewise, you may have received glimpses and foretastes of the glory to come, but you have not yet experienced what saints enjoy in the immediate presence of God. Still, if you have seen, tasted, touched, and felt even a little of what you are saved from and what you are saved unto, it will cause you to bless God for the gift of even a grain of true and living faith—the faith whose ultimate end is the salvation of your soul.