Salvation means you are set free from the penalty of sin; God’s rightful judgment, by His grace, through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, God’s agent for salvation, is involved in every aspect of your conversion and transformation. Salvation originates with God’s grace, the work of the Holy Spirit as He draws you near and convicts of your sin, your part… repentance & faith (conversion) and the divine part… justification and regeneration, which all happen at about the same time.
This Is What Has To Happen For You To Get Saved:
As you read or hear the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which tells about the ‘greatest life ever lived and what He has done for you,’ the Holy Spirit in His own timing, will submit to you “sufficient light” in the midst of the darkness of your sin, where you are unwilling and perhaps even unable to believe, draws you to Himself, unblinds your eyes, “tugs on” and softens your hardened heart, opens your mind and “convicts you about the guilt of sin, the punishment for it, your need for a Savior and about righteousness and judgment.” (adapted from John 16:8; emphasis added). The Holy Spirit does a supernatural work of grace to reverse your unwillingness or ignorance and releases you from the bondage of your sin leading you to genuine repentance and enables you to come to faith in Christ.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor for you where He gives you what you need (a Savior) and not what you deserve (His wrath, a powerful and just anger, His rightful judgement… physical and spiritual death and eternal punishment). It is God’s grace that draws you to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit. It is His grace you accept when you become a born-again believer.
Repentance and Faith
Repentance means turning from and forsaking sin (the act of giving it up) by changing your thinking and changing the behaviors your thoughts produce and turning to a righteous relationship with the one true, living God; it’s literally making a 180 degree turn, going in one direction and then turning around and going in the completely opposite direction. Behavior is the way you act and react; your actions and reactions. Your actions are what you choose to say and how you say it and what you do. Reactions are what you choose to say and do (how you act) in response to what others say and do and how you act in response to things that happen. Remember, your thoughts, attitudes and actions are always either Christlike or they are not; they either please God or they don’t. If they’re not Christlike or if they don’t please God… that’s what sin is. Sin is thinking, saying and doing things that aren’t Christlike and don’t please God.
Repenting is being sorry for and regretting not only the act of sin, but also being sorrowful and regretful of yourself for allowing sin to separate you from the goodness of God for so long. It’s like thinking: “I used to think these things were okay, but now I don’t. I no longer do these things.” That’s repentance. It requires a “Godly sorrow” and a complete surrender to His will for your life. It must be genuine, heartfelt and real. The Holy Spirit will determine whether or not your repentance is genuine, heartfelt, and real. It is an eternal life-changing decision; the most important thing you will ever do in this world.
You cannot have genuine repentance without saving faith or saving faith without genuine repentance. They are inseparable, yet distinct acts.
Faith is the belief, trust and complete confidence, without a single doubt, in who Jesus is and what He has done for you.
It means turning to, trusting in, and relying on Him… all day, every day, in every situation and every circumstance of life.
“So faith comes from hearing the Good News (the gospel). And people hear the Good News when someone tells them about Christ.” (Romans 10:17 ERV; emphasis added).
Saving faith requires a knowledge of what God has said through His Word. It is by hearing the the Good News that the Holy Spirit begins to do His work in you. It is the Holy Spirit who grants you the gift of faith, enabling you to believe in Jesus Christ.
Not “temporary” faith where you believe for a while and then fall away or “intellectual” faith where your faith in Christ is in your head, but not in your heart or “dead” faith where there are no actions to show the evidence of your faith, but real “saving” faith , a “conquering” faith, which does not compromise to the ways of this world; the Victor’s life, the only way to conquer death. With it God gives you a three-fold promise found in Revelation 2:17: ‘the hidden manna,’ ‘the white stone,’ a ‘new name’ written. With it you have been promised life that never ends in heaven. Without it you will die for a second time and be thrown into the lake of fire for conscious torment which never ends.
Faith in Christ is not something you can obtain all by yourself; it’s saving faith, real faith, permanent faith, conquering faith, which is granted by the Holy Spirit who only grants it when your faith is “authentic.”
For more information about repentance and faith, go back to the main menu and look under “The Components of Salvation.”
Justification and Regeneration
Once your faith is granted, justification follows. “Because of your faith and trust in Christ, God graciously credits the righteousness of Jesus to you, the believer, and declares you to be acquitted (absolved, not guilty, freed of all charges, no longer an enemy, right and whole with God, pardoned and just) and then designates you to be brought into right standing before Him.” (adapted from Acts 13:39)
This is the ultimate success of your earthly life.
It is God who “justifies” you by His grace, by faith alone, apart from works. You did nothing to deserve it. Jesus paid the penalty for your sins. You did not. It is by His righteousness you are justified, not your own. God sees you in Christ and in His eyes, it is “just” as if you had never sinned!
“(We, you are) justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:24 NKJV; emphasis added.
Once justified, the Holy Spirit transforms you (called regeneration) through a spiritual rebirth, where you are born again, for a second time, as a new creation in Christ, completely changed from the inside-out for all to hear and see. The old you no longer exists and everything about you is new. It is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you.
You simply cannot be saved and remain the same.
Let’s take just a moment to explain that the eternal life we are granted through faith and trust in Jesus Christ begins not when we die, but the very moment we are saved. This explains why you can’t be saved and remain the same.
In John 17:3, Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God (as opposed to all the false gods), and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Jesus is the one true God and eternal life.
Eternal life is personally knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ, his Son. It is not only what we can have after death, it’s the quality of life we can enjoy right now. It is a personal, intimate relationship with both the Father and the Son where eternity begins now and extends for evermore; a present reality and a future hope for those who believe. It was Jesus who brought God glory through finishing his work… dying on the cross, making eternal life possible for us. We can also bring glory to God by the way we live our lives through Christ beginning the moment we are “born again.” Christlike and pleasing to God in everything we think, say and do; all day, every day.
This life eternal, then, is not mere conscious and unending existence, but a life of acquaintance with God in Christ and we don’t have to wait until we die to receive it.
For more information about justification and regeneration, go back to the main menu and look under “The Components of Salvation.”
“The greatest of all God’s miracles is the salvation of a soul.” C.H. Spurgeon
When you are “saved” it means you are a Christian, an unashamed follower of Jesus, a born-again believer (born for a second time), a new creation in Christ, an adopted child of the one true and only living, Creator God and a joint-heir with Christ to eternal life.
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