Are you seeking to be saved from eternal condemnation? I have heard from many different people on how and when they were saved. I won’t go into all the different ways of people’s salvation stories. But I will tell you what the bible says. In Matt. 28:18-20

¹⁸ And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

One of the first things that we can see here is that Jesus has been given all authority. Just as at our earthly job, if your boss tells you to take two ten-dollar bills and buy as many candy bars as you can without going over the twenty dollars and bring the candy and change back. Would you be following his directions as he commanded if you took four, five-dollar bills or even one twenty? You may say, what’s the difference? It will all be the same. Well the truth of the matter is this. If the boss gives specific instructions on how to do something, because he has the authority to tell us what to do, we are not at liberty to do anything but what he said. John says in chapter 14:15

¹⁵ “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

No matter how trivial the command, we must do as directed. We are not at liberty to change the words given us. John says in chapter 17:17

¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

The word of God is truth, and who are we to change the truth. The bible is all about telling us about how to be saved. Are we sure we followed those instructions? So how is getting to the point of being saved attained?

We must first hear the word.

That is the Truth. Romans 10:17 tells us:

¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. That is rather easy for us to understand. You need to first hear about something before you can put your faith into it.

Second, we must believe what we hear.

We must believe the word of God, not the words of man. Mark 16:15-16 says:

¹⁵ And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. ¹⁶ He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

The disciples here were told to go into all the world and preach “the gospel”. If you notice, the gospel spoke about here is singular. The gospel spoken was a gospel that was given by Gods authority. Are we at liberty to teach anything else but what was directly told us in God’s word? Here it says that we must believe “the gospel”. Make sure that what someone is teaching you is Truth. God’s Truth!  2Tim.2:15 tells us to Study the word of God so that we can properly handle it. Properly use it.

The third thing we need to do is confess Jesus!

In Romans 10:9-10, it says:

⁹ that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; ¹⁰ for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

When we confess about someone or something, we are attesting to its truth, its authenticity.

The fourth thing we need to do is repent.

Repenting is something each individual has to do. But even before that we need to realize that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We see this in Romans 3:23. We all have something in our lives that need to be changed because we were doing it wrong. Repentance is a change in direction. When we realize we are not going in the right way we stop doing that and go in the way that is prescribed to us. Prescriptions come from the Great Physician, God.

Peter told Simon about in Acts 8:22 to repent. This is essential to our salvation. Acts 2:38 tells us:  Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And the fifth thing we need to do is be baptized.

You see baptism is not a work any more than repenting or confessing or reading God’s word to obtain faith. We are baptized to obtain the forgiveness of our sins as was just read in Acts 2:38. Baptism also puts us in touch with the blood of Jesus. Read what Romans 6:1-7 says,

¹ What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; ⁷ for he who has died is freed from sin.

You see, baptism according to Acts and Romans, allows us to have our sins forgiven and to free us from sin. Remember, as we look at these passages, these are inspired words from God for us to follow.

One last thing for us to remember is our continued faithfulness to the Lord.

When we have become a child of God, we must continue to be subject to Him and His word. Rev. 2:10 tells us to be faithful unto death, and you will receive the crown of life. So are you following after man and his doctrine or following after God. John 8:31-32 says:

³¹ So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

 

Dwight Bouvette