The Path of Salvation
What does it truly mean to receive salvation? What does it mean to be saved? Well, the concepts are not many, not difficult to understand if you only allow yourself to be open to them. The Bible says a few things, firstly that all people are sinners, for all have fallen short of the glory of God. No one, except Jesus, sinned not, only Jesus made it through life without committing sin. And since we are all sinners, we are all lost and all without God. Salvation was bought and paid for, however, for all people from the time Jesus died on the cross until the end of this age. All people’s sins were paid for by his death, he was the sacrificial lamb of God, of whom it was written would be our savior. Through him and only through him can and have some received salvation, for Jesus said I am the door, no one comes to the Father, or passes into the kingdom of heaven except through me. Then it is through receiving Jesus that we obtain salvation, which is consistent with the word, which says whoever calls on the name of Jesus and trusts in him shall receive eternal life. How then do we receive him, for the bible also says that we must first believe in our hearts and then confess with our mouths that we are sinners in need of our savior, Jesus Christ.
How though can we believe in our hearts, and how can we trust in him who we have not known and whom we have not seen? You must open your heart up to him, and allow the Holy Spirit to convict you and then let him reveal the person that is Jesus unto you, actually experience and meet Jesus. Through this belief in your heart, you can then confess with your mouth that Jesus is your savior. This is also backed up with scripture which says grace comes by Faith and not by works, lest no man should boast. You see grace, or God’s undeserved forgiveness and favor, comes by faith or trust and adherence in Jesus, and not by something you did, for all have fallen short, you can’t earn salvation, it’s a gift.
Now many people stop at this point, but don’t realize that faith is dead without works, or basically, as it says in the book of James, faith is inoperative without works. This concept really isn’t very hard to understand though if you sit and think it through. Firstly, if you trust or have faith in someone, your actions will back it up. If you truly trust your friend with your life, you will not panic when your life is in danger and he is your only way out, you trust him. You do not get all worried before a test if you trust in yourself that you studied enough and are prepared. You see your actions must be manifestations of your trust and faith, so faith without works is dead, for if you don’t act on your faith, what truly does your faith amount to. Also, the bible says that faith must be working through love, in order to be truly operative. And really this lines up with the last scripture, because, love, as it says, is an action, and love is what you do to others and is a physical work. Love also is a feeling and a passion, but if love is true it will also manifest as an action or a work. So now faith is dead without works, and without love. But love itself is really a work, for that is love’s manifestation. So truly when it says faith is dead without works, really what it means is faith is dead without love. Which also holds up because love is the binding force that holds all things together. Love is the substance which binds us into relationships, and so therefore is needed to hold us in the relationship of faith and trust.
The real key though to salvation is knowing and loving your Savior because you need him, but more than that, because he first loved and served you. Therefore serve and trust him in love, and as scripture says walk by faith, or let your actions be a testimony to your trust in him, that is the key to salvation, it is relationship, bonded by love which creates faith. Amen!
Writer can be reached through staff@thebiblecodes.com
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