Salvation
By Richard Andrew
Knowing the truth is only the half of it. To be saved, you must confess your sins to God and believe with all your heart that Jesus Christ is the ultimate sacrifice that will keep you from death and eternal damnation.
If you believe that, and keep faithful to the Scriptures and His return, then not only will you be rescued from sin and the eternal lake of fire, but you will have a place prepared for you in Heaven. That is it! That is all it takes!
God never intended it to be hard. He already did the hard parts for you. All you have to do is confess that you are a sinner who desperately wants to receive Christ, and have Him in your heart forever.
What is next? The next step is to live righteously the way God would like you to live. Sin corrupts, so try not to go back to your former old habits.
If ever you should fall from grace, even just for a second, get back up! Don’t let your failure discourage you with your walk with God. There will be obstacles that try to tear us apart. Satan will be a big enemy to us. He will do anything to make us fall and sin. We have to be strong and fight temptations, even in our darkest hours, when our spirit battles against our flesh. Confess your sins and ask God to forgive you again. Repent and turn away from that sin and fight harder to stay away from that sin.
Don’t think that God can’t forgive you. You may think that you’ve did some very terrible stuff in your life, and that He can never be able to forgive you. Friend, God is God. He can do all things. He can forgive you, no matter what you’ve done. The Bible tells us that once we truly are sorry for our sins, and want forgiveness, God is Just and Faithful to forgive us of our sins. After that, He *no longer* holds them against us when we’re appointed to the Judgment Seat of Christ. Just like God did for the people in the Bible, He will do for us too. He never changes. So, no matter what you’ve done, lay your burdens down to Jesus. He went to the cross for you.
Don’t delay. Eventually time will run out. It’s only a matter of time before Christ returns and defeats evil in the world. Pray to Him. Open your heart to Him, He’ll listen!
Why do we need salvation?
All of us are sinners. The Bible tells us there is no human that is righteous —except for Jesus Christ. He was the Worthy Lamb that selflessly took our place in the debt of sin.
From the beginning of the time Adam and Eve sinned, the human race became corrupted with sin. Sin is a disease that ruins the soul! We need God to save us from it. That is why He sent us Christ.
God, in the form of flesh, allowed His mockers to place hard nails into His hands and feet and crucify Him to a wooden cross. Jesus was sinless and innocent, but became a willingly substitute in our places. It should’ve been us, but He loved us enough to take our place. Every pain He felt, everytime He was mocked and belittled, He carried on. His mission was so we could be made right with God. We had an outstanding debt to pay to God, yet we had no way of paying Him back. That is why Jesus stepped in and paid it for us.
He did that for us, because He loved us. Why must people continue in sin then? Don’t you know that He did this for us because there was a one-way path to Hell? He made us an alternate path. No other one can save us from a terrible extinction except God! He saved us from that trail of eternal, spiritual death. It’s only up to you, in accepting Christ or not, whether you want to get off that trail of death or continue to a terrible place called Hell.
In today’s world, people make us seem like another religion…but folks, it is not a religion. It’s the real thing. God is more real than us, and He’s kindly giving us a way to be rescued from the lake of fire by giving us Salvation.
Why are we on a path to Hell?
Because we have sin! God never intended Hell to be for His people, us. He intended Hell to be for the fallen angels and Satan, who all worked against Him.
Satan, after being cast out of Heaven, went after us through Adam and Eve. Sin entered into the human race once Adam and Eve both willingly ate the forbidden fruit. They bought Satan’s lie and ate from the forbidden tree.
With that, we all became corrupted. Don’t you see? When that happened, we became like those fallen angels and Satan. We were set to have their same judgments on us too! Without God redeeming those that accepted Him in the Old Testament, they would’ve been doomed…just like now! If we don’t accept Jesus Christ, then we’re doomed! Christ became our sacrifice so that we all could be saved. Through faith and Christ, today we are counted as righteous by following our Lord.
When we accept God, and follow Him by faith, our names are written down and counted for us as an assurance policy. It may seem silly to you, but that book is what will keep you from the lake of fire. The lake of fire is a pit where Satan and all the sinners will be cast into at their judgment…Satan and his angels are already set for that punishment, but don’t let it be yours too! God never intended for humankind to receive that punishment. That’s why He sent us Jesus. We have to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. No other alternative can do it. No works can save us. Only faith and acceptance in Jesus Christ can.
One day we will have our judgments. Believers in the Lord will have theirs, which is a reward ceremony. Satan and sinners will have theirs, which is a condemnation ceremony. Sinners are in that judgment because they will have failed to accept Jesus, therefore they’re placed in that category solely because they failed to accept Jesus.
There’s only two sides. Which one will it be? You decide now!