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Salvation and Rededication to the Lord
First, I want to congratulate you in taking a step of faith that will radically change your life. My hope is that you will take some time to walk through these lessons with me. I have attempted to make them short, but informative answering the questions that new believers need to know. I have included with each lesson a place for questions and I will respond to you quickly. Of course, you are welcome to call, text, email, or come by the office anytime to talk about any of these issues, but for the pace of our life today, this has proven to be a good method for many people. May the Lord bless you and keep you in all things. -Pastor Lee
WHAT IS SALVATION? The passage above comes from Acts 4:12. I want to give you the full passage of Scripture for context:
Acts 4:10-12
then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is
“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.’
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (NIV 1984)
then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is
“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.’
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (NIV 1984)
According to the Bible, Jesus is the only name by which a man might receive salvation or be saved from his sins. I want to make sure that you fully understand why this is with all of the many different religions and gods that people claim. It is important to know why we believe what we do.
When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as we read in the book of Genesis, they were innocent. They were not perfect, but innocent meaning they had no knowledge of evil. The tree with forbidden fruit was called the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. When they ate the forbidden fruit from this tree, suddenly, humanity was very familiar with wickedness. Whereas, wickedness would have never entered into the mind of man, now wicked thoughts are daily.
In our society, wickedness and evil are terms that we apply to only the worst of the worst such as murder or rape. From a Biblical perspective however, anything that distracts us from God is considered to be wicked or evil. Good things can become wicked if they become more important to us than God. The reason for this is because God wants every man and woman to go to Heaven. The Bible says that God wants none to perish in Hell. But God also knows that the only way to get to Heaven is by putting God first in our life above everything else. His promise is that if we will seek Him first, He will bring to our life everything good including Heaven when we leave this Earth.
Sin, then, occurs in our life anytime we put something before God in that moment. For example, when someone hurts me, God wants me to forgive that person, but in the moment, I may put my pain above God refusing to forgive, holding a grudge instead. When we find ourselves doing things like this, we need to simply ask God to forgive us and the Scripture says He is faithful to forgive when we confess our sins to Him.
The reason that salvation comes through Christ alone is because one sin is enough to keep us out of Heaven. And I don't know about you, but I have sinned way more than once :). God is a God of justice and He cannot ignore sin and wrongdoing. So the Lord must punish wickedness and sin, but wants no one to go to Hell so He has designed a plan to help mankind overcome the problem of sin.
His plan was to become a man Himself, live a life completely without sin, and take the punishment of all sin upon Himself. In Romania, when communism invaded during the World War II era. Many Christians were put in prisons along with other political prisoners who were not Christians, but also did not want communism in their country. To help win the unbelieving prisoners, the Christian prisoners would volunteer to take the daily beatings of the political prisons. They were modelling what Jesus did on the cross. He took the punishment that belonged to mankind. Our sin deserved eternal death in Hell, but God sent His Son, Jesus, to become flesh. He never sinned. Had He sinned, the punishment He received would have been for His own sin. Because He did not sin, He was qualified to take the punishment of sin for the whole world.
Because God is a just God, then when we put our faith in Jesus as the person who took the punishment for our sins, we are free to enjoy the grace of God. God cannot punish our sin again when it has already been punished through Jesus on the cross. When we sin now He sees into our heart and that we have received Jesus as our Savior from sin. Rather than getting what we deserve as a result of our sin, God gives us grace. Grace is the favor of God that we receive though we do not deserve.
And this is why Jesus is the only name by which man can be saved. There is no other god or religion on Earth that does away with sin and the effects of sin except Christianity through Jesus Christ. He was the only one who made a way to escape from the punishment of sin for those who put their faith in Him.
This is why we say that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. He alone, because He lived as a man who never sinned, was able to take the punishment of our sin and save us from Hell. And He is our Lord meaning that we trust Him as God who knows all and we obey Him as the Lord of our life.
When you prayed to ask Jesus into your heart, to commit yourself to Him, the innocent blood that was shed on the cross was applied to your life so that now when God looks at you, you are innocent. Now, the Lord wants you to walk in thankfulness for what He has done for you. He has given you His name, the name of Christ. You are a Christian.
When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as we read in the book of Genesis, they were innocent. They were not perfect, but innocent meaning they had no knowledge of evil. The tree with forbidden fruit was called the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. When they ate the forbidden fruit from this tree, suddenly, humanity was very familiar with wickedness. Whereas, wickedness would have never entered into the mind of man, now wicked thoughts are daily.
In our society, wickedness and evil are terms that we apply to only the worst of the worst such as murder or rape. From a Biblical perspective however, anything that distracts us from God is considered to be wicked or evil. Good things can become wicked if they become more important to us than God. The reason for this is because God wants every man and woman to go to Heaven. The Bible says that God wants none to perish in Hell. But God also knows that the only way to get to Heaven is by putting God first in our life above everything else. His promise is that if we will seek Him first, He will bring to our life everything good including Heaven when we leave this Earth.
Sin, then, occurs in our life anytime we put something before God in that moment. For example, when someone hurts me, God wants me to forgive that person, but in the moment, I may put my pain above God refusing to forgive, holding a grudge instead. When we find ourselves doing things like this, we need to simply ask God to forgive us and the Scripture says He is faithful to forgive when we confess our sins to Him.
The reason that salvation comes through Christ alone is because one sin is enough to keep us out of Heaven. And I don't know about you, but I have sinned way more than once :). God is a God of justice and He cannot ignore sin and wrongdoing. So the Lord must punish wickedness and sin, but wants no one to go to Hell so He has designed a plan to help mankind overcome the problem of sin.
His plan was to become a man Himself, live a life completely without sin, and take the punishment of all sin upon Himself. In Romania, when communism invaded during the World War II era. Many Christians were put in prisons along with other political prisoners who were not Christians, but also did not want communism in their country. To help win the unbelieving prisoners, the Christian prisoners would volunteer to take the daily beatings of the political prisons. They were modelling what Jesus did on the cross. He took the punishment that belonged to mankind. Our sin deserved eternal death in Hell, but God sent His Son, Jesus, to become flesh. He never sinned. Had He sinned, the punishment He received would have been for His own sin. Because He did not sin, He was qualified to take the punishment of sin for the whole world.
Because God is a just God, then when we put our faith in Jesus as the person who took the punishment for our sins, we are free to enjoy the grace of God. God cannot punish our sin again when it has already been punished through Jesus on the cross. When we sin now He sees into our heart and that we have received Jesus as our Savior from sin. Rather than getting what we deserve as a result of our sin, God gives us grace. Grace is the favor of God that we receive though we do not deserve.
And this is why Jesus is the only name by which man can be saved. There is no other god or religion on Earth that does away with sin and the effects of sin except Christianity through Jesus Christ. He was the only one who made a way to escape from the punishment of sin for those who put their faith in Him.
This is why we say that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. He alone, because He lived as a man who never sinned, was able to take the punishment of our sin and save us from Hell. And He is our Lord meaning that we trust Him as God who knows all and we obey Him as the Lord of our life.
When you prayed to ask Jesus into your heart, to commit yourself to Him, the innocent blood that was shed on the cross was applied to your life so that now when God looks at you, you are innocent. Now, the Lord wants you to walk in thankfulness for what He has done for you. He has given you His name, the name of Christ. You are a Christian.