SALVATION
ITS STARTS WITH JESUS
Everyone has an opinion about Jesus. Maybe you think He’s a great teacher or a prophet. Maybe you think He didn’t exist at all. Whatever you believe, we can probably agree that Jesus changed things. We believe He wants to change you, too.
HOW CAN A PERSON BE SAVED?
“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,‘ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” ~Romans 10:9
DOES YOUR LIFE HAVE PURPOSE?
God, the Creator of the universe, has a purpose for you and your life. He loves you and wants to help you because He is a good God. And because of that, His plans are better than your plans. You don’t have to measure up to some impossible religious standard to know Him. You just have to take a few simple steps.
How can I receive the gift of salvation?
Admit You Are A Sinner
All of us have failed to live for the glory of God. You have, I have, everybody has. Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” — which I think means we have exchanged the glory of God for images (Romans 1:23). All of us have preferred other things to God, and so we’ve made the glory of God look worthless. We’ve dishonored God in so many ways, which means we’ve chosen the way of death. Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
BELIEVE IN JESUS
Believe that Christ died and rose again so that you could be saved.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”—John 3:16
CONFESS WITH YOUR MOUTH
Confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth confesses and is saved.”
—Romans 10:9–10
PRAY
Dear Lord Jesus:
I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead.
I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior all the days of my life. Thank you for forgiving me and for the gift of eternal life with You.
In Your name I pray, Amen.
The gospel is the good news of God’s grace invading the darkness of this world. It is the grand narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation ordained by God and orchestrated through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Christ’s crucifixion is the heart of the gospel. His resurrection is the power of the gospel. His ascension is the glory of the gospel.
Jesus claimed He knew God. No big deal, right? Plenty of people make the same claim. But Jesus also said He was God. And this upset the religious leaders of His day so much that they killed Him.
The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is both God and man. This can be confusing to our understanding how Jesus can be God and man at the same time. How could our divine Creator become a human? Could a first-century Jewish man really be God? While a certain amount of mystery will always accompany this issue, both Scripture and, to a lesser extent, church tradition provide for us important distinctions to help us make sense of this matter. While previous church councils had deliberated over issues pertaining to the nature of Christ and His relationship to the Father, it was the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) that affirmed that Christ is “the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man.”
The Triune God of the Bible has existed and reigned from all eternity, and the second Person of the Trinity, the Son, took on human flesh at a particular point in time (Luke 1:35; Hebrews 1:5). God the Son added a sinless human nature to His eternally existent divine nature. The result was the Incarnation. God the Son became a man (John 1:1, 14). Hebrews 2:17 gives the reason that Jesus had to be both God and man: “He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” The Son of God took on human flesh to provide redemption to those under the law (Galatians 4:4–5).
At no time did Jesus ever cease to be God. Although He was made fully human, there was never a point when He abrogated His divine nature (see Luke 6:5, 8). It is equally true that, after becoming incarnate, the Son has never ceased to be human. As the apostle Paul wrote, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, emphasis added). Jesus is not half-human and half-divine. Rather, He is Theanthropos, the God-man. The Lord Jesus Christ is one eternally divine Person who will forever possess two distinct yet inseparable natures: one divine and one human.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.” ~John 14:6
Don’t good people go to heaven?
Many people think that being good will get them into heaven—that if they are nice, don’t commit any crimes and try to do the right thing, they have earned their way into God’s kingdom.
But the Bible says we all fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). We all sin, and the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). There’s nothing we can do to earn our way into heaven.
But God made a way by sending Jesus Christ to die for our sins! None of us are good enough to get to heaven on our own, but if we ask Christ into our lives, we can look forward to eternity with Him in heaven. It’s not about good things you’ve done, but about what Christ has done for you (Ephesians 2:8). It’s not about emotions you might feel, but about what God’s Word tells you (1 John 5:11-13). Jesus provides the only path to salvation.