The Standby Christian

By Pastor Justin Cooper

Brother, you ever flown standby?

Most folks haven't, but you can spot one a mile away in any airport. While everybody else is sipping a four-dollar Coke and scrolling on their phone, the standby folks are pacing. Checking the screen. Walking up to the gate agent every five minutes. "Is there a seat yet, ma'am? Anything open up?" They can't sit still. They can't relax. They look like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

You know why? They've got no assurance. They got no seat on the plane.

And listen to me — there's a whole lot of Christians living the same way.

"You can't consistently stand if you're not confidently saved."
— Pastor Justin Cooper

You and I both know somebody like that. Maybe it's you. Saved. Meant it. But every time the feelings cool off or you stumble into the same sin again, the question creeps back. Did it count? Was that the real one? Should I just go forward one more time? So you walk the aisle again. And again. And again. Some folks have been "getting saved" for forty years.

That's not the helmet of salvation. That's a paper crown.

Look at Ephesians 6 verse 17 with me. "And take the helmet of salvation." Now don't miss this — Paul didn't write that to lost people. He wrote that to folks who were already saved. He's not telling you to keep getting it. He's telling you to wear what you already have.

Salvation is not a treadmill. Salvation is not a race. Salvation is a birth.

And once you're born, you're born.

Christ doesn't perpetually self-amputate His body. Your name doesn't get crossed out of the Lamb's Book of Life every time you sin again. You're not going to walk through heaven one day and find your mansion torn down with a wrecking ball because you blew it on a Tuesday.

I am free from sin's penalty. I am free from sin's dominion. One day I'll be free from sin's presence.

That's the helmet. Past saved. Present saved. Future saved.

Here's your Monday morning move — grab a pen and your Bible. Find the day you trusted Christ — even if it was twenty years ago — and write it in the margin next to a verse like Romans 10:13 or 1 John 5:13. Date it. Sign it if you want to. And the next time the devil shows up at your gate trying to act like a gate agent, you don't argue with him. You just point to the date.

You and I have a seat. Our name is on the manifest. We're not standby — we're booked.