How to Be Saved
The Gospel: Your Response?
How to be forgiven and accepted by God.
¨ If you would like to make peace with God and have your sins forgiven, you could use the following three steps, as a guide, to help you:
Step 1. Get right with God
Firstly, you need to repent of your sins . This tells God that you are sorry for your sins and that you acknowledge that you have rebelled against Him; that you deserve punishment; and that you’re asking for mercy on the basis of Jesus’ death in your place. You’ll also need to ask God to help you change, to live with the Holy Spirit as the ruler of your life. If you honestly wish this to occur in your life, one way to start could be to pray a prayer something like this:
“Dear God,
I know that I am not worthy to be accepted by you. I don’t deserve your gift of eternal life. I am truly sorry that I have rebelled against you and ignored you. I need your forgiveness.
Thank you that you came to this earth as a man, Jesus Christ, and died on a cross to take my punishment. I believe that you rose from the dead on the third day. I thank you that Jesus lived the perfectly sinless life that I cannot, so that His righteousness can be counted for my behalf.
I no longer claim authority over my life. I place faith in Jesus Christ alone as my Saviour and Lord. Please change me, that I may submit to your Holy Spirit whom You place within me now as the seal that I am your child.
Thank you God.”
If you decide to pray this prayer in repentance to God, and truly mean it in your heart, God will forgive your sins and adopt you as His child. The Holy Spirit will come to live in you and will help you.
The important thing to remember is that it is not really important to God how you say these things, but whether you really mean what you say. God looks into our hearts and knows our true feelings. All the prayers in the world will not help us unless we truly believe in and rely on Jesus Christ, and His life, death and resurrection, in order to be made right with God.
The first step, then, is to repent to God and place your faith in Jesus Christ.
Step 2. Living the new life!
You will want to start putting your faith in Christ into practice–that is, actually submitting to God through obedience to the Holy Spirit. There may be all kinds of areas in your life in need of change. You’ll need to get rid of old, rebellious habits (such as greed, anger, selfishness, and so on) and start some new ones, which please God (such as generosity, kindness, love and patience).
This second step will go on for the rest of your life, but God will be with you all the way. He’ll keep speaking to you (through your reading of the Bible); He’ll keep listening to you and helping you (as you pray to Him); He’ll empower you to change and to live His way (by His Spirit, which lives within you); and He’ll provide brothers and sisters to encourage you along the way (as you meet with other Christians).
The second step, then, is to start living a Holy life before God.
Step 3. Keep trusting
The third step is also ongoing. You need to always be placing your trust in the right place. It’s only because of Jesus (and His life, death and resurrection) that you can be forgiven and put right with God. You’ll need to keep coming back to this again and again, because, as you start to live God’s new way, you will still fail and do the wrong thing. We all do. We all need to keep looking at Jesus Christ as the only grounds for our pardon. We must never stop following, relying on and trusting in Him–and Him alone–as the means by which we are forgiven and granted eternal life.
Though it is important to live a Holy life, we must remember that this Holy life never “earns” us the right to enter Heaven. It is only our continuing faith in Jesus Christ’s free gift that allows us to be forgiven, and counted as God’s child.
The third step, then, is to have a continuing relationship with Christ.
Your Decision:
If you follow these steps, God has promised to forgive and save you, and take you to be with Him forever in Heaven. If, in the past, you have believed what is written here, but have since strayed from this path, you will want to repent of this sin , and continue on with steps 2 and 3 above.
Finding a Church:
An important part of the Christian life is to fellowship with other Christians. Unfortunately, there are many churches that claim to teach the Bible and to follow Jesus, but sadly, they really are not teaching the truth, and lead many people away, with false teaching. It is wise to read your Bible and weigh up very carefully whether what you are being taught at church is in complete agreement with God’s only inspired word, the Bible. It is a good idea to ask each church for a statement of their beliefs for comparison, or ask the church’s minister questions.
As a good test, any acceptable church should be able to agree with all of the following eleven summarized statements below. They have been written in such a way that they should be accepted by the majority of mainstream evangelical protestant church backgrounds (including Calvinistic and Arminian).
11 Points your church should agree to:
1) There is only one true God, revealed as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
2) Jesus Christ is both truly God and truly man. He lived a perfect life, died on a cross for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day.
3) The Holy Spirit is active in our conversion, and regenerates and indwells those who belong to Christ.
4) The Holy Scriptures are the final and supreme authority in all matters. The Bible is authentic in its original text. The sealing of the cannoned scriptures contains the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.
5) The existence of Satan, Demons and Hell are a reality.
6) All humanity is involved in sin and depravity and can do nothing of their own merit to save themselves.
7) Jesus Christ has provided the only way that sinners can be saved, by offering Himself as an atonement for sin.
8) To be a Christian, a person must have repented to God of their sins and placed faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. While (water) Baptism and receiving of Communion may be worthwhile things, both are symbolic in essence and possess no saving merit within themselves. The ability of speaking or interpreting tongues is not a requirement or proof of becoming a Christian, nor any sign of spiritual maturity.
9) The only way we can be justified (made right) with God is because of God’s grace alone, which we receive through faith alone, in and because of Jesus Christ alone.
10) Christians have a responsibility to strive to live a holy and obedient life before God, which will also naturally result in the forthcoming of good works. They should also strive to actively tell others about Christ.
11) One day Christ will return. Those who accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour will live for eternity in Heaven and those who rejected Christ will be eternally separated from God in Hell.
Thanks for sharing.