I was wondering how to explain salvation to someone the other day.
I have memorized the verses in Romans that explain salvation but I started wondering how Jesus, Peter, and Paul explained it.
I have yet to find one time where they asked "Do you want to accept Jesus?".
That surprised me.
Every time they just presented the truth of God, Jesus and our sin then let the person decide for themselves. Apparently their presentation was so Holy Spirit filled people started asking them how to be saved from sin.
I have started to realized that once your culture becomes comfortable with words like "Accept Jesus into your heart", they start to lose all meaning.
Here's what occurred to me:
You need to know what you are choosing.
You are agreeing to give up what you currently have (all that you currently have)- the option to make wrong choices all the time, drive your life into the ground with your limited wisdom and to end up eternally separated from a God who loves you and would do literally anything to offer you more.
You are agreeing to give Him all that you are. EVERYTHING.
Nothing is off the table, He gets to have the final say in everything. Now, if you realize how much He loves you (as demonstrated in His choice to die a physical death for you and be separated from all His glory for you) then giving Him this is not a risky move.
The above are the parts are where you realize if you believe in him or not.
If you trust him or not. Whether you think sin is real and you have it in your life or you don't.
It's an all or nothing deal. All of you just as you are or none of you.
If you can jump off the high dive on this the tell someone.
Tell your family, tell another person who believes this, tell someone who can encourage you and help you in what you have just decided.
Confessing that Jesus is Lord, your lord is a huge deal. If you know what Lord actually means. Don't let Church culture lull you into a false sense of a relationship with God.
False salvation is worse than none at all. It's like having cancer but believing you are cured.
I firmly believe it only takes 5 to 12 truly saved people to turn a town or area into a hot bed of the Gospel. So if that seems to be the case in the bible, why are our churches so quiet and our towns hot beds of the lost?
If you say you are a Christian and you have never talked with your family, children, grandchildren, coworkers or friends about the above things then you don't really have much in common with Jesus, Peter, Paul or any other leader of the New Testament.
My prayer is that God would change me from the inside out so that my mouth would speak of Him constantly. I also ask that He forgives me to neglecting Him and every soul around me.
I'm in the same boat with you. For too long we've undersold the gospel because we've treated it like a business transaction--a sale is always better than no sale. But this is a radical lifestyle change we're talking about. And surely that's how Paul and Peter presented it! This concept has been swirling around in my head the last couple days. Thanks for this post.
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