A LETTER TO MY ONE YEAR OLD GRANDSON, A SAINT IN THE MAKING

 A Letter to my one year old grandson, a saint in the making.

Dear Jacob,

You just turned one year old.  You are remarkable.  God has gifted you with so many abilities already.  You are ready to take your first step.  You enjoy banging on the piano, but some times touch it ever so softly.  You can use your own spoon and bowl, but you like to play with your food.  You love watermelon.  It is so much fun getting to know you and seeing you grow!

One day you will be old enough to recognize that some people are different.  We call them saints.  Your dad and mom are saints.  So is your grammy.  You will likely become a saint too.  When you accept Jesus into your heart and life, you begin your journey as a saint in the making.

Some day you will have your own personal mission and ministry.  Life is ministry. From your spiritual heritage you will discover that the mission of The Salvation Army is to  save souls, grow saints, and serve suffering humanity.  This mission corresponds to John Wesley’s continuum of grace (Via Salutis) that runs from justifying grace, to sanctifying and glorifying grace.  Once a person has repented of sin, confessed their faith in Christ, and been reconciled with God in Christ, growing of a saint begins.  You may be a saint.  But what is a saint and what does growth in grace look like?

 

As a saint you become a follower of Christ maturing in the faith with a heart purified by the Holy Spirit so that your head, heart, and life together reflect holiness, Christ-likeness.  As you grow to know Christ, love Christ, and live Christ, your maturity and purity of heart will become the marks of you as a saint.  

The exercise of growing as a saint is the making of a disciple.  It involves God helping you to bring your thinking, feeling, and living together over time so that at the intersection of the three (head, heart, and life) your growth as a saint is made possible.  When we think of head, heart, and life, psychologist call these three areas of your life cognitive, affective, and behavioral.  Theologians say ortho (straight, right)doxy(thinking), orthopathy(right passion, or feeling), and orthopraxy (straight practice or living).  Its how you think, feel, and live in ways that are increasingly right and good because they are guided by scripture and pleasing to God.

Think of Jesus as the perfect one who is the complete overlapping of the three 

spheres of head, heart, and life.  Christ is your example and becoming like him is the goal.  The more integrated and overlapping the three circles of your head, heart, and life, the stronger you become as a Christ-following disciple-saint.  Count on it.  You can grow to be increasingly like of Jesus.  In the words of the Apostle Peter, you can increasingly participate in God's divine nature (2 Peter 1: 4).  

Growing saints is a process of sanctification.  As you become more and more like Jesus along the way, God will  encounter you.  Those encounters are positive crises of illumination (“I am a sinner in need of forgiveness and cleansing”), of compassion and strength to love others, and of cleansing and infilling with all the fullness of God and his love.  Then there will be more growing to be more and more like Jesus.  Being a saint is the most natural thing in the world when you stay close to God and follow Jesus every step of the way. 

As you grow up, we will talk about these things in ways you can understand at each stage of your spiritual journey.  You have a wonderful journey ahead of you.  My prayer is that you get to know Jesus more and more and grow to be more and more like him all the days of your life.

I love you Jacob my saint in the making,

Grandpa