The Way (Part 4): What Must I Do to Be Saved?

            At one of our high school small groups on Wednesday night, the students were asked what they feel like their generation is seeking.  One answer was autonomy: they want the freedom to make all their own decisions and do what they want to do without depending on anyone else.  Inwardly, I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.  I remember feeling that way as a teenager, but now there are days when I would love to go back to the time before I had to carry the weight and responsibility of being an adult.  For example, I hate driving.  I enjoy the freedom I have to get where I need or want to go, but I struggle with pretty severe anxiety over having all potential consequences placed squarely on my own shoulders.  The first time I drove, I couldn’t even bring myself to step on the gas pedal for several minutes.  I just coasted in a big, open lot until my patient dad couldn’t take it anymore.  Growing up, I didn’t give riding with my parents a second thought.  The weaving semis, hidden deer, wild cars, and rising speed didn’t scare me because I depended on, relied on, believed in, and trusted my parents completely.  I knew they would protect me and get us all where we needed to go.  Nothing was required of me in order to reach our destination other than to rest in the back seat and wait. 

            In part one, we discovered that God’s demand to be in His presence is perfection.  Next, we saw in part two that even though we were created to be in a relationship with God, our sin separated us from Him.  Nothing we can do can repair that relationship, and the just penalty for our sin is death (physical, spiritual, and eternal).  God loves us, so we heard the good news in part three that He paid the price of our sin to satisfy His own holy and just demand by sending His son Jesus.  Jesus took the full wrath for the past, present, and future sins of all people in all times and places when He died on the cross, and His resurrection proved that God accepted His sacrifice as full payment.  Jesus died for all, but not all will be saved.  God’s Word tells us exactly what our response needs to be in order to have the gift of Jesus’s righteousness credited to our account and to live in His perfect presence forever.  We must believe in Jesus, and Him alone, for salvation.  This is how we accept the gift. 

            Saving belief in Jesus is not a factual head knowledge like believing the sky is blue.  Even Satan and the demons themselves believe that Jesus is a real person, that He died on the cross, and that He came back to life.  They witnessed it and know it to be true.  No, the belief that results in salvation is similar to the belief I had in my parents when I rode in their car.  It is a belief that trusts in, relies on, and depends on Jesus completely as the one way to salvation based on his death and resurrection.  It is resting in His completed work to get us where we need to go.

            It sounds too easy, so many people try to add requirements.  They say you must be baptized in water, read your Bible, pray, go to church, give to the needy, serve in soup kitchens, go on mission trips, give up all your bad habits, make Jesus Lord over every aspect of your life, and/or complete many other good deeds before you can be saved.  Even though all these are good, and God calls us to them for His glory, to reach more people, and to grow us into becoming the people He originally created us to be in His image, Isaiah 64:6 tells us that they are still only filthy rags (menstrual rags) compared to Christ’s righteousness.  We have to have Christ’s righteousness credited to our account in order to be saved, and that happens when we believe in Him alone for salvation.  His righteousness alone can save us.  Good deeds are simply a natural out-flowing of our reconciled relationship with Christ as we stay close to Him.  Romans 4:5 says in no uncertain terms: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”  Ephesians 2:8, 9 also makes this point abundantly clear: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one can boast.”  This great salvation is simple as far as what our response needs to be, but it was not easy or cheap.  Remember what Jesus went through.  Remember His sacrifice.  The gift of our salvation came at great cost.  How foolish we are to think that anything we could do could add value to the precious gift Jesus already paid for and offers freely to all who will believe in Him.    

            After quoting Romans 4 and Ephesians 2, I also want to bring some clarification to a word that is so often abused, misused, and misunderstood: faith.  Biblical faith is not some mystical wishy-washy concept that floats around the heads of those who don’t have their feet firmly planted in reality.  God has told us in His Word, the Bible, exactly what faith is.  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  In other words, it is a strong, confident belief that has no problem with its object being unseen.  Faith for faith’s own sake does not save anyone and can actually be foolish.  The object of the faith is what matters.  I could have faith that my three-year-old nephew could drive me to the grocery store, but that faith would be sorely misplaced, and it would not result in anything remotely good.  Many children have faith in an invisible friend, but that friend does not exist no matter how sincere their faith is.  I have faith (a strong, confident belief) in Jesus now, even though I cannot see Him, because of the very real evidence He left behind that He is the way, the truth, and the life.  But that’s a topic for another day.  Faith, or belief, only results in salvation if it is placed in the right person, Jesus, because that person is the one doing the saving.

            If you haven’t yet believed in Jesus, know that He loves you, and no matter what you have done or what has been done to you, you are not too far gone for Him to save.  You don’t have to clean yourself up before trusting Him to save you.  Believe in Him now, and He will bring about transformation in your life as you grow in your relationship with Him.  He has paid the steep price to be able to offer you this gift.  You can be all you were created to be and be fully and finally satisfied in your relationship with Him.  He just asks you to accept His gift by believing in Him.  Trust Him, and like I find rest when I ride in a vehicle driven by someone I trust, you too will find rest for your soul.                    

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To Be Known

My Testimony 

Birth

            Twenty-seven years ago, I was born to two hard-working and loving parents who loved and served Jesus.  As I grew, they told me about Him and took me to church, where I heard the same message:

 Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  For as long as I can remember, I knew what sin was and that I was a sinner.  I knew that all sin brought death, that I was not perfect, and as such, I could not enter a perfect heaven with a perfect God.     

                       

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."  I heard again and again the story of how God sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sin, how he was buried, and how he rose again three days later.  I learned quickly that Jesus' blood paid the penalty for my sins and that I could go to heaven if I believed in Him.

                       

Ephesians 2:8, 9 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."  I also learned from verses such as these that trusting in Jesus for salvation on the basis of His death and resurrection was the only way I could be saved.  I knew that going to church, praying, and being good did not save me.

           

 It didn’t take long before He began to stir my young heart, and my mom says that I was saved around the age of three or four.  Of course my understanding was limited, but I honestly don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in Jesus at all, so I know that I was pretty young when I first believed.  At that point, I was given a new life: I was born again in Christ.  After my physical birth, it took time to develop.  I had to learn how to process sensory information, how to hold my head up, how to crawl, how to walk, and how to communicate.  Just as I had to grow, learn, and develop over time as a child, I’ve also had to learn, grow, and develop in my relationship with Christ.

Baby Steps

In elementary school, I remember having an intense inner drive to obey authority, follow rules, and do what was right.  I didn’t know why, and it drove me nuts.  I didn’t like when some of my peers called me names, hated me, or tried to get me to do things that I knew were wrong.  There were times when I wanted to do what was wrong to fit in, but something inside me made it incredibly hard to do that.  Don’t get me wrong, of course I gave in and did the wrong thing sometimes.  However, I was miserable inside afterwards.  Now I know that the “inner nagging” I was experiencing was partially my personality and my conscience, but primarily it was the Holy Spirit working in my heart.  Since I did not know that fact at the time, and I didn’t read my Bible or pray on my own much, I wasn’t really glorifying God with my life even though I often did what was right.  I was living to stay out of trouble, to keep my parents and other authority figures happy, and to satisfy that relentless inner drive to do what was right.  I also lacked a sense of purpose and meaning.  What was the point of living rightly anyway when it often made me so awkward with my peers?      

Growth Spurts

In middle school, I reached a significant milestone in my relationship with Christ.  During the summer after sixth or seventh grade, I went to Maranatha Bible Camp with one of my best friends.  Prior to attending camp, my friend had been participating in the AWANA program with me and was asking increasing amounts of questions about Christianity.  When we went to camp, God used one of

the lessons to draw her to Himself to trust His Son as Savior and also to open my eyes to having a daily, thriving relationship with Jesus.  Like I said, I was saved when I first believed.  However, at this point, I began to understand more about why I did what I did and why I should spend time with my Lord by reading my Bible and praying.  My faith became more than just going to church on Sunday and knowing that I was escaping Hell because of what Jesus did.  That year at camp, God opened my eyes to my ultimate direction and purpose and life: to glorify Him by getting to know Him, obeying His Word, telling others about Him, and living for Him as He guides me through each stage of life.

Developing Doctrine and Disciplines

            Throughout high school and college, I experienced many valleys and mountaintops in my relationship with Christ.  The darkest valley during that period led to the most incredible season of growth that I have experienced so far.  During my first year at a secular junior college, I rebelliously entered and stayed in an unhealthy relationship that I knew wasn’t God’s will for me.  Among many other significant problems, we had different doctrinal views.  Our main point of contention was whether or not a person could lose his or her salvation.  I had been taught that salvation can never be lost.  He believed otherwise.  As he showed me verses to support his view, I began to question and doubt everything I had been taught concerning eternal security.  I knew there had to be an explanation, but I didn’t know how to find it on my own.  I also grew concerned about the fact that if I were to end up marrying this young man, I would find myself in a very difficult situation when it came to what we would teach our children. 

God graciously  removed me out of that relationship, but I was left severely wounded and full of questions.  That fact, combined with a growing desire within me to get a better foundation in Scripture knowledge so that I could teach my future kids someday, made me ripe for the picking when the Frontier Carolers came to my church and spent some time at my house.  They talked about the intensive Bible training they received at school and about the fact that it was very inexpensive.  It sounded to me like it was close to heaven (little did I know, La Grange is not close to anything).  As I was getting ready to graduate soon from NJC, the opportunity couldn’t have been more perfect.  I was so excited when I found out that I was accepted to Frontier School of the Bible that I read the school’s handbook from front to back multiple times.  I only planned on attending for one year, but that turned into three years as a full-time student and one year as a part-time married student ( they offered a few free credits for spouses of full-time students, and they allowed me to continue taking classes even after I had graduated while my husband finished up his senior year).

FSB Graduation

I learned so much at school, and I cannot fully express how thankful I am for it.  The truth that it is impossible for me to lose my salvation was reinforced, and I learned how to defend that truth in Scripture.  I gained a new understanding of the incredible hope we have as believers who are in Christ.  I learned the freeing truth that the power of sin is broken in my life so that I do not have to constantly fight it anymore; not that I never sin any more, but Galatians 5:16 says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”  I have a choice.  I could go on and on about all that God taught me through school, but I think one of the most important tools I received from school was how to read and study my Bible in depth.  Before school, I often used the “open your Bible and point” method, which is shallow and unreliable at best and dangerous at worst.  When all else failed I went to Psalms, Proverbs, or James because I knew I could understand those books fairly easily, and I neglected a huge portion of God’s Word.  At school, I learned how to read verses in context – taking into account the verses surrounding a particular verse as well as the historical setting and grammatical factors.  I discovered how correctly-used cross-references can open up a passage like you would not believe.  Not only did the teachers tell us how to do all this, but they demonstrated it for us class after class.  In teaching us how to study on our own, they enabled us to glean from God’s Word vastly more truth than what they could ever fit into a three-year program.  I will be able to use the skills I gained at FSB for the rest of my life as I continue to dig into God’s Word on my own to learn directly from Him.

 

Maturing

            In the years since school, God has continued to teach me several hard lessons.  As I partially described in my series, “A Life Unexpected,” we have gone through many trials in the past few years, and we have also had many sweet moments with God.  Though I sometimes backslide, God is continually molding and shaping me into the woman He created me to be.  I hold fast to the promise in Philippians 1:6 that the One who started the work in me will continue until it is finished.  I am so thankful that He doesn’t give up on me, and I am so thankful that He knows me.  He knows intimately every detail of my story from beginning to end.  One encouraging truth that has been brought to the forefront for me in the past week is that He knows my sorrows.  In the past week, Psalm 56:8 was discussed both during the sermon on Sunday and during the lesson at youth group.  It says, “You keep track of all my sorrows.  You have collected all my tears in your bottle.  You have recorded each one in your book” (NLT).  He knows all that weighs on my heart, and none of the tears I have cried have escaped His notice.  There is a great comfort in truly being known and seen by God.  I am so grateful for the breath He gave me twenty-seven years ago and for the new life He breathed into me just a few short years later.  Knowing Him brings meaning to my story, and I sincerely hope you know Him too.