Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world,
and death through sin, and thus death spread to
all men,
because all sinned-
Ephesians 2:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not
of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest
anyone should boast.
The two passages above
explain that all have sinned and no matter what good you do
in life, it cannot earn you eternal life. Even if you never
knowingly committed sin in your life, you were born with a
sin nature. Sporting or boasting about a membership card to
a certain organization, church, or denomination cannot save
you because salvation is a free gift from God.
The Bible goes on further to
say:
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me..."
Acts 4:12
"Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other
name under heaven given among men by which we must be
saved."
Now there are a lot people in
the world proclaiming to know the way to God and eternal
life. Some even say it does not matter which route you take
(Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Self-Enlightenment, Nature,
Astrology, Psychics, etc.), all roads lead to the same God.
But, in John 14:6, Jesus emphatically declares that He is
the only way to the Father. He does not share this role with
anyone or anything else. It is by His Name and His Name
alone that you can be saved.
How then does one become
saved? The Bible says:
Romans 10:8-11
But what does it say? "The word is near you, even, in your
mouth and in your heart" (that is the word of faith which we
preach); that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus
and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved. For with the mouth confession is
made to salvation. For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes
on Him will not be put to shame."
Romans 10:13
For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Believing in your heart and
making a simple confession with your mouth that Jesus is
Lord is all you have to do to be saved. The great thing
about calling on Jesus is that He will not put you on hold
and make you wait for salvation. When you call upon Him by
confessing Him as Lord of your life, you will be saved.
There is no question about it. By now you might say,
"Salvation is a free gift I cannot earn. Looking over my
life, I can't say that I deserve to be saved."
But wait! Look at what the
Bible says about this:
John 1:12
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to
become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old
things have passed away; behold all things have become new.
We have already seen in the
Bible that you cannot earn salvation. But, there is also
nothing that you have done or could ever do in your life to
make you ineligible to receive salvation through Jesus. God
has given you the right to do so. You do not have to clean
yourself up to approach Him. Come exactly as you are. When
you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, those things that you
have done in the past are left behind in the past.
Skeptics might say, "Well
that's all fine and good. But, do you really expect us to
believe in the Bible? Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, a
burning bush, a virgin birth, Jesus dying on a cross to save
the world, and His resurrection...Those events seem just a
little farfetched."
Again, let's turn to the
Bible:
I Corinthians 1:21,
25
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom
did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of
the message preached to save those who believe. Because the
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of
God is stronger than men.
Deuteronomy 30:19
"I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and
cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your
descendants may live;"
The beauty of the Bible is
that it is so simple. Anyone can understand it by accepting
it as truth by faith. As indicated in the scriptures above
(Ephesians 2:8 and Romans 10:9), accepting Jesus as Lord and
Savior of your life is a step of faith. Hebrews 11:6 says
that it is impossible to please God without faith. Jesus, in
John 20:29, says those who have not seen and still believe
are blessed.
God has given you the choice
to believe and have life, or not to believe and have death.
In so much as He urges you to choose life through Jesus, He
will not force you. He loves you enough to give you a
choice. He protects a decision to choose life just as He
does a decision to choose death.
