Salvation what is it?

Is it a simple transaction, where we say the special prayer and boom we get our ticket stamped so we get into heaven and miss the fires of hell?  Now it doesn’t matter whatever else we do, we got in and all the others are on the outside.   Our only obligation is to get others to make that same transaction.

Is it a transformational experience that completely rocks your world.  Yes, it has a starting point where we come to the realization that Jesus accomplished our salvation apart from our efforts.   And this beginning for us merely marks a point from which we should grow daily in our desperate love for the One who’s set us free.   We are never to be the same.  

For me, it was presented ad the first method.  With all the hellfire and burning judgement to scare me into saying that prayer.  I never got a hold of that version from the people who witnessed to me.  I was too blinded by the allure of the world to want to set it all aside.  But when I was exposed to the love of Jesus demonstrated by some friends who just loved me as-is the overwhelming grace of God was like a magnet drawing me back into his arms.  It was indeed a total transformation which has continued day by day.