Christ Leads The Way

Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you think believing is enough to be saved? Do you know if you are saved? I recently spoke with a woman about salvation. When I asked her if she was saved, she said that she did not know. She said that people do the best that they can and hope for the best at the end of life. Well, from what I read in the Bible, I know that if God makes a promise, He will keep it. And He has promised that if we do what He says, He will save us.

Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 23 says, “Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” God is faithful and will always keep His promises. And He has made us several promises about the salvation of our souls and the hope of an eternal home with Him.

After you hear the Word of the Lord concerning salvation from death and to an eternal life, you first must believe in Jesus as the Son of God. “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from through the message about Christ” (Romans 10:17). If you don’t believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who died for our sins and rose from the dead, then you can’t partake of the blessings that He offers.

One of the most familiar verses in the Bible is John 3:16. It was probably the first verse that many of you learned, like it was for me. The English Standard Version of that verse says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” So those who believe in Him won’t die an eternal death, because if you believe in Him, then you will do what He’s commanded.

Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). I want to be clear that there is more to salvation than just believing in Christ. Even the demons believe and tremble (James 2:19). There are many who teach falsely that all you have to do is believe in Jesus and say a prayer to God and you will be saved. That’s not what the Bible says. Having faith in Christ without doing what He says is useless faith (James 2:26).

We can’t just take that one scripture and dismiss all the other teachings about salvation. Just like we have the 4 Gospel accounts – the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – and we look at them all to get a complete picture of the events of the life of Jesus, we must, also, look at all the scriptures that detail what one must do to be saved in order to know what to do to be saved.

There’s more to salvation than believing in Christ. It is necessary that you believe in order to be saved, but it is not sufficient. But you must first believe. We’ll discuss what that more is next time.

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” – Romans 13:11