WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SAVED?

            Genesis 1:26 tells the story of God creating man.  God created man because He wanted a family; God longed for fellowship, and man was the answer to the desire of God’s heart for a family.  Because God loved man, He gave man His own nature.  Man had the life of God in him and was therefore able to have fellowship with God.  God also created a beautiful earth and placed Adam in a location of great beauty called the Garden of Eden.  During the day, God would come down and visit man and have fellowship with him.  The Heavenly Father now had the fellowship He had longed for. 

            Genesis 1:27-30 tells of the assignment God gave Adam on the earth; he was to have dominion over the whole earth.  With this great authority that God gave to Adam, God also gave boundaries.  He was not to eat of the tree that was in the Garden of Eden - that was the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9).  That tree belonged to God and not to man.  God also gave man a companion for him on the earth, which was the woman named Eve that He created from one of Adam’s ribs (Genesis 2:21-25). 

            But one day, God’s enemy, the serpent Satan, entered into the garden which was to be tended and guarded by Adam.  The serpent began to reason with Eve, enticing her to take the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that was forbidden to them.  After Eve ate of the fruit, she then handed it to Adam and he also ate of it.  Because they obeyed what the serpent spoke to them to do instead of obeying what God had told them, they broke their fellowship with God.  Because of their sin against God, they lost the nature of God from their being; that was replaced with a nature of sin which came from Satan. This sin-nature came into them when they obeyed the serpent, Satan, instead of obeying God.  Satan’s nature came into man and fellowship with God was lost, for God cannot fellowship with sin.

            God was no longer man’s Father, but man was now a child of Satan, for he now carried that sin nature of Satan. 

            The authority that Adam had received from God was now transferred to Satan, and Satan stood in the place of authority on the earth that once belonged to Adam; as a result, Satan became the god of this world (II Corinthians 4:4) and from then on evil came to exist in the earth because of Satan’s lordship.   

            Because of Adam’s sin against God, every man born after Adam was born in sin and had the nature of sin in them.  This sin nature forbade them from ever being able to approach God and have fellowship with Him. 

            But God’s heart of love still reached out to man and created a plan to restore man back to Himself.  God still longed to have man for His family.  What was the plan God had to restore man into His family?  To send His only begotten Son, Jesus, who is the Son of God and had always existed with God.  Jesus agreed to God’s plan to come to the earth and pay the price for sin Himself.  So Jesus was born into the earth through a virgin named Mary and lived a sinless life as the Son of God.  Jesus was crucified and God laid upon Him the penalty of sin for all men.  Jesus became man’s substitute; He took the consequences of man’s sin so that man would not have to.

            Because of man’s sin nature, he was doomed to live eternity in hell with his father, Satan.  But Jesus went to hell in the place of man, and defeated Satan.  He took the authority back from Satan that he had assumed from Adam, and Jesus restored that authority back to man.  Jesus forever freed man from the lordship of Satan, and transferred man back into God’s family.  Jesus saved man by paying the price for sin and by freeing man from Satan’s nature that was in him, and putting God’s nature back into man.

            After Jesus went to hell and defeated Satan, God raised Him up from the dead and into Heaven, seating Him at His own right hand.  Because Jesus was crucified for us, He was also raised from the dead for us and seated at the right hand of the Father.  Now, man has access to God’s presence and can once again live in fellowship with God.

            Although Jesus paid the price to free every man from all sin, each man must declare that he wants to once again have God as His Father, and this is done by receiving Jesus as Savior from sin.  While Jesus was alive on the earth, He declared, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”  There is no other way to be restored back into God’s family.  There is no other way to be free from the nature of sin.

HOW DO I BECOME SAVED?

            The Bible gives very clear instructions on how to be saved.  Acts 2:21 states, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  By simply calling on the name of Jesus, telling Him you receive Him as Savior since He paid the price for your sin, you can once again receive the nature of God into your heart, be freed from any sin, and be able to fellowship with God.

To be saved, simply pray the prayer below, and pray it from your heart.

Dear Heavenly Father:

I come to You in the Name of Jesus.

Your Word says, “him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37), so I know You won’t cast me out.  But You will take me in, and I thank You for it.

You said in your Word, “…if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, THOU SHALT BE SAVED… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:9, 13).

I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

I believe Jesus died for my sins and was raised from the dead so I could be in right standing with God.

I am calling upon His Name, the Name of Jesus, so I know, Father, that You save me now.

Your Word says, “…with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10).

I do believe with my heart, and I confess Jesus now as my Lord.  Therefore, I am saved!

Thank You, Father.

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