WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
Have you ever asked yourself, "Where am I going to spend eternity?" It is curious that many people make elaborate plans for their short life on earth, but sometimes fail to plan for eternity. Yet planning for eternity is what accepting God's plan of salvation is all about. Salvation represents the work of God to rescue man from eternal ruin and death caused by sin. To be saved means dealing with the causes of our being "lost." Being "lost" means being separated from and out of contact with God because of sin. Salvation leads to eternal life. Salvation is the work of God to find lost man. It is free. Taking the few steps described in the Bible to receive this glorious gift must never be understood as our work instead of God's work. Therefore, when we meet God's conditions to receive salvation, we are accepting His gift of eternal life. What, then, must we do to be saved?
Salvation Begins With Faith
In the New Testament, which tells the good news story of Jesus Christ, salvation is declared to depend upon believing in Christ, or having faith in Him. Faith and belief mean the same in the Bible, referring to salvation. Salvation is made possible only through Jesus, the Son of God. We are saved when we accept Him as our Savior. These quotations from the New Testament illustrate this basic and important truth: To all who received him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1: 12).
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever be lieves in him shall not perish but have eter nal life" (John 3:16).
These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
Faith Leads Us to Repent and to Be Baptized
It is imperative that we express to God our belief in Jesus as His Son and as the One who redeems us from our sins. Sin leads to death, but God sent Jesus into the world to deliver us from our sins and their penalty - the wrath of God. This great truth is revealed in John 3:36.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
The Gospel by John was written as a record of the many wonderful things that Jesus said and did, to give us a basis for believing in Him. John 20:31 says:
Faith is firm confidence and trust in the exist ence of God and the work of salvation He has completed on our behalf through Jesus Christ. Tberefore, we are called to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that by His death, burial and resurrection from the dead, we are forgiven of our sins. We have become the children of God and will receive eternal life. Can you believe this great truth? If so, you can be saved. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10:9:
In the second chapter of Acts, Peter, a dis ciple of Christ, preached a sermon in which he told of Jesus' identity. He called upon his lis teners to believe in Jesus. The text in Acts 2:37 informs us that Peter's words brought a sense of conviction to the people's hearts. They cried out, "Brothers, what shall we do?" In verse 38, Peter told them they must do two things. He said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." In this one verse Peter listed two important responses we must make to receive eternal life. When we realize that God has worked out our salvation by offering His dear Son, we feel a sense of sorrow for our sins. This sorrow leads us to confess our sins to God with the assurance that He will forgive and purify us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
The process of feeling sorry for our sins and onfessing them is called repentance. Genuine repentance always brings about change. Paul writes, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets" (2 Corinthians 7: 10a). In other words, God uses sorrow we feel in recognizing our sinfulness to lead us to a change of heart that leads to sal vation. Before we repent, we accept sin as a normal way of life. But when we repent, we see how serious sin is. It brings death. It caused Jesus to die. Therefore, repentance causes us to be aware at all times of God's will for our lives. This definition is well supported by Paul, who called upon those he taught to repent. He said,
I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds (Acts 26:20).
Paul is saying that repentance should bring about a change in us. We should be obedient to the Word of God. Our deeds demonstrate that we have turned from our sinful ways to obey and serve God. The next step after repentance is baptism in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins (Acts 2:38). We may express faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our Savior, we may be sorry for our sins and confess that we are sinful, we may determine to obey God's Word. But until we are baptized in water in the name of Jesus, our response to God's offer of eternal life is incomplete. Jesus commanded that His believing follow-- ers be baptized. Just before His ascension to heaven, He told them:
Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19, 20).
In the New Testament, Christian baptism is described as a burial. Paul wrote,
[You have] been buried with him [Christ] in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead" (Colos-sians 2:12).
"Baptism" is an English word translated di-- rectly from the original word used in the New Testament that means "immerse" or "put un-- der." Thus, the Bible's symbolic picture of bap- tism as a burial is not mere coincidence. It de- scribes the act of baptism as a complete immer-- sion in water, symbolizing the believer's par-- ticipation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life (Romans 6:3,4).
Paul uses symbolic participation in the death and resurrection of Christ to teach us the true significance of baptism. In Romans 6:5-7, he explains that through baptism, the believer symbolically illustrates the death of his sinful nature by burying it, then rising from burial to live a new life in harmony with God's Word. Paul wrote:
If we have been united with him [Christ] like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin be- cause anyone who has died has been freed from sin. If you have taken time to prepare for a long, happy life on earth, why not take the time and necessary steps to receive God's gift of eternal life? Through faith in Christ, repentance, and baptism, you can respond to God's offer and be made alive to Him.
