The Old Testament believers looked for the Messiah to come and save them from their sins. They sacrificed animals at the altar in reference to the ultimate sacrifice: Christ Jesus. The shed blood of the animals didn’t take away their sins and they knew that. Their focus was on Messiah who would come and be their Savior. Today, believers know that Jesus, the Messiah, has come, but many don’t know how to get “saved”. They think that works or prayer recitals are the formula for salvation.

There is no formula for salvation; just a heart that seeks after God.

We are sinners in need of a Savior.

This is where believers step in and tell the lost that they are sinners and need a Savior to get into Heaven. Many churches today are not teaching the people that they are sinners but it’s crucial in order to receive Jesus as our Savior. We read in Genesis 3 where God tells Adam and Eve that they are not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Their life was perfect and holy before God and Jesus even walked in the Garden with them. Can you imagine how wonderful that was?

Jesus could do that because there was no sin in the garden, but when Adam and Eve disobeyed Him and ate the fruit, their eyes were opened to the choice of good and evil. In their rebellion, they chose evil and it spread like fire after that. In fact, only a few generations later, the world was so corrupt with sin that God destroyed it all except for Noah and his family. And it didn’t take long after that for the rampage of sin to once again seize the world. We are all sinners, and we all need a Savior.

• For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.—Romans 3:23

We all need to repent.

Many think that Jesus automatically took away all of their sins when He died on the cross and that they don’t need to repent because He said, “It is finished.” However, Jesus was saying that the salvation plan was finished. Each person now has the opportunity to come to Jesus and repent and receive His forgiveness. Salvation is very personal. It’s between each person and Jesus and there are no exceptions. We each need to realize that we are sinners and need to repent. Salvation is available to everyone, but only those who accept it will be saved.

We cannot come to God when there is sin in us as God is Holy and we cannot stand in His presence. But God knows our heart and when it’s touched through a message or worship music or personal testimony, He gives a measure of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), just enough for us to open our heart to Him. It allows us to come humbly before God and repent and seek His forgiveness. But we can only repent when we realize that we no longer want to be a slave to sin—Romans 6:17.

• Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”—Acts 2:38

We must accept Jesus as our Savior.

This same measure of faith also give us the ability to believe that Jesus truly is the Savior, the Messiah who died on the cross for our sins. We will know in our heart that Jesus is the Son of God who came from Heaven to become a man who would take upon Himself all of our sins and die on the cross as an atonement that would allow us to once again be free of sin and one with God, our Heavenly Father. We will believe that He was raised from the dead and lives in Heaven because our heart will change when we are born again.

When Jesus becomes our Savior, He also becomes Lord over our lives. Contrary to modern belief, if you are born again you will not want to continue living in sin or maintaining a sinful lifestyle. The Spirit within you will convict you to change. If you are truly saved, then your heart will be changed so that the world no longer rules over it and you will no longer want to live in sin. When Jesus becomes your Lord, you want to follow and obey Him, only!

•  Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”—John 3:3

We must pursue a relationship with God.

Salvation is the beginning of the believers life, but like a new baby, he or she needs to be fed in order to grow. The Scriptures are the believer’s food. We need to read them prayerfully every day, meditate on them and study them  to get the truth deep into our heart. Every word we read brings us closer to the heart of God, and this is where we want to be.

There is only ONE interpretation of the Scriptures, not many as false teachers try to convince us. To understand the Scriptures, we must realize that God gave the words to men to write. These are God’s words. God wrote them and only God can give the interpretation to them. So we read prayerfully and ask God to reveal His truth to us as we read and His Holy Spirit in us will teach us—John 14:26.

• All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.—2 Timothy 3:16-17

We are God’s temple.

When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He cleanses us of all sin—ALL sin—and fills us with His Spirit. We no longer belong to the world; we belong to God. He is our Heavenly Father and we are His children. We follow Him, give glory to Him, praise Him and live for Him in every area of our lives.

We will no longer will want to do the things in the world that we once did, and our lifestyles take on a different appearance. We become a testimony of who God is because He lives in us. Does this make us perfect? No! It makes us forgiven. We will not engage in the sins of our past deliberately; however, each one of us will slip up now and then, and do things we shouldn’t or not do things that we should. We will all need to come to God and repent, but the good news is that He forgives us and we keep going.

• Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.—2 Corinthians 5:17

We are to do good works.

Good works will NOT get us saved, nor will they get us into Heaven. But we are to do good works so that others can see God in us and give Him the glory. Good works allows others to experience God’s love and mercy and forgiveness so that they will want this love and confidence in their own heart and lives.

When God’s Spirit lives in us, it will become natural for us to be like Jesus, to love as He loves and to forgive as He forgives. We will have patience and mercy for people, and we will want to share and give of ourselves to help them, and to share His gospel with them because we will love them as Christ loves us.

• We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.—Ephesians 2:10

There are no shortcuts and there are no compromises to salvation. Jesus is our Messiah and we are saved through His shed blood—ONLY. We will spend eternity with Him, but while we are here on earth, our heart is with His, and our mission is to share the gospel with the lost before He returns. We are living in the very last hour before Christ calls home those who love Him. After that, this world will go through a horrific and terrifying time of tribulation as God pours His wrath out upon sin. Time is short so let’s put aside our own desires and  be His light in this dark world. Lives depend on it!

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Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day….Ronnie!