The Opposite of Saved is NOT Lost!

Why do we need to label people as lost. Do we have a need as Christians to feel superior? God help us!

First, let me start by saying this title is something I feel the Lord has revealed to me very strongly. I have been holding on to it in my spirit over a week.  I am not trying to get people to read this article using some type of verbal sensationalism. I hate it when people do that.

I was always taught that until “I got saved” I was a child of God’s wrath. My religious system teaching had me labeling everybody in this two-sided world. My specialty in seminary was “the invitation” and in my conferences the altars were always full of people praying “the prayer.” They also taught me that unless I witnessed to them, they were headed for Hell.

This is not a teaching on Heaven and Hell. I will leave that to the theologians. My focus in this life is practical Christianity. I don’t care what you know and how much you know, when your daily life and character don’t resemble the Lord Jesus Christ. I am not impressed by numbers, titles, or seminary degrees. I am only impressed by the witness of the Holy Spirit within when I am near the fragrance of Christ.

Recently studying the book of Ephesians, I came to a broader understanding. I do read my bible no matter what my critics who don’t know me and don’t understand what my heart says!

This is the verse; Eph 2:1-3

And you who, He made alive (Added) were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. NKJV

By nature, doesn’t mean there is no good in you until you are saved as I was taught, but that we appeared “lost by implication” because of the carnal lifestyle we had. Why is this important to Christians today? Well, how you see others is how you will treat them. Believe me those you call lost know how you feel around them. They don’t want to be your next project or to be the next notch in your salvation gun.

Instead of this cut and dry religious system teaching of lost and saved, let’s try to get more of the whole mind of God on salvation. I prayed the prayer at twelve years old in the office of the principal of Trinity Christian school. Never went to school there and my life (except on Sundays) by implication looked lost until I was 23. It was then that I truly surrendered my life. As a result, there was a different nature noticed in me, i.e., change. Everyone could tell something had happened to me.

It was much more than repeat a prayer, get baptized and go to church on Sunday. There was a spiritual conversion, a spiritual transformation from above, a life altering change to my character. The current church scene is full of fakes, professing something that has never really happened. The problem is we told them it did, but when there is no power over sin, they lose faith in Christ and the Church.

The above testimony is what we understand humanly. So, when did I stop being lost? The truth is I was never lost.

Eph 1:4

“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” NKJV

My old life may have implicated a non-Christ nature, but even in that condition, I was chosen for salvation before the foundations of the world.

Even crazier than that, is that everything I do now was planned for me beforehand while I was still in my sins.

Eph 2:10

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I am the Lord’s poem. I am His story. I am His product. The story was written about me before I came out of my mother’s womb.

Same as Paul. Was Paul lost when he held the coats of those who stoned Stephen? Or was He lost when he arrested and mistreated Christians? No, he was on the path to a supernatural manifestation of a divine process.

Gal 1:15-16

15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, NKJV

So, what is my point here:

1. Be very careful how you see others, who you call saved and who you call lost. Treat everyone as Christ treats you.
2. It is not as simple as you have been led to believe. More can be done for Christ with your life than your bible verses, tracts, and your “Roman road repeat after me instant salvation.”
3. Christianity was never about going to Heaven when you die. Real Christianity is about “On earth as it is in Heaven” today for you.
4. Church meetings were never meant for hearing sermons, leading the lost to Christ, coming into His presence, or worshipping by singing together, but for the health of His Body and taking time for “one-another”
5. The sooner you treat the “lost” like people in a process, the sooner you will have them ask you, “What must I do to be saved?”

It’s fall of 2022 and the Church of Jesus Christ finds herself in a transition. The Lord is at work on His Bride, and the process will not be over quickly. It will get darker before the Light arises fully in our hearts. When it does, His Light will lead people to the Truth of Christ Jesus and away from human religion.

May we be found at His feet on that Day!

Much love,

Jose L Bosque