[click to read entire article in a main browser window]

What must I do to be saved?

There is no greater question than this. Asked nearly 2000 years ago by a jail-keeper in Greece, it is of vital importance today. This simple and urgent question has a direct and profound answer: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16.31).

To believe in Jesus unto salvation is to

• Confess you are a sinner utterly unable to save yourself, justly deserving God's wrath, and wholly dependent upon God's mercy. This includes confessing the fact you are a sinner and also confessing specific sins.
• Trust in Christ alone to take the penalty for your sin and also give you his perfect righteousness.
• Obey God out of a new love for him knowing that your good works do not merit salvation but instead flow from gratitude for what he has done on your behalf and are "good" only in so far as you are united to Christ via his Spirit in you.

By way of explanation, we see contained in the main question are three very crucial related questions:

Who am I?
Why do I need to be saved?
What can I do?

First, you and I were created by almighty God. He made us and he owns us. Just like a potter has command over the clay so too does God have command over people to do with and expect of them what he will (see Romans 9). Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves (Psalm 100.3).

Second, you and I need to be saved because we are lost. We pursue our own desires according to what seems right to us rather than what God has said is right according to his perfect, holy, and just standard; we have strayed from the path of righteousness and rebelled against our maker. The end result is that we sin because we are sinners. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way (Isaiah 53.6). There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3.10-12).

Third, in and of ourselves we cannot do anything to rescue ourselves from this deviant and destructive path. In fact, we don't even want to change course because we enjoy our sin and willingly act on our evil desires. How can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Matthew 12.34). ...fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind (Ephesians 2.3).

True? Indeed. Sad? Yes. Hopeless? No.

The answer to the third point above hinted at a glimmer of hope. The Good News (i.e. The Gospel) is that God in Christ does for men what we could never do for ourselves. We cannot pay the penalty for our sin -- Christ takes his sheep's penalty upon himself; we could not establish our own righteousness -- Christ gives his righteousness to his beloved. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift! (2Corinthians 9.15) David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin (Romans 4.6-8).

What sweet news this is to the man who realizes he can never please God in the flesh. Redemption is not 50% our work and 50% Christ's work. It's not 25%/75%. It's not 10%/90%. It's zero from us and 100% from God. By faith we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3.5-7).

Won't you receive him today and rest from your futile labors, labors that are getting you no closer to him? Has God mercifully convinced you of your sin and misery? Has he graciously enlightened your mind in the knowledge of Christ? Has he powerfully renewed your will thereby persuading and enabling you to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to you in the Gospel? Believe on him -- his perfect life and victorious death -- because nothing else will satisfy the thirst of your soul.

Then you will be freed from the shackles of sin. Instead you'll be enslaved to Christ and begin to endeavor after new obedience.

Please, contact us as you begin your new life in Christ.