1. Realize you are a sinner by nature. Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Everyone is born spiritually blind.
2. Believe that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for you, for your sins! I Cor. 15:3-
I Peter 2:24 adds: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
3. Repent (turn away from your sin and unbelief) Luke 13:3 “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” In context meaning to repent of sin and also particularly of your disbelief in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
4. Confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Romans 10:9-
Religion is service that people try to provide to God or even to others. Salvation is something that God has provided for us. The Gospel is the true message of Salvation.
Religion= People doing something for God or others. Example: Me getting baptized, joining the church, or doing good deeds.
Salvation= God doing something for us that we are unable to do for ourselves. Example: Jesus Christ shedding his blood for our sin, so we can become God’s children only by having faith in his finished work. Jesus said: Ye must be born again.
The good news of Jesus Christ is the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes it and who will trust upon the person and finished work of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we often speak of being “saved”. Jesus spoke about being saved in the Bible, as did others also.
When the Bible talks about being saved, it is not talking about being saved from a physical accident, sickness, or disease. It is taking about being saved from our sin and being made born again into the righteousness of God.
To be saved is to be in Christ. (John 10:9) To believe on Christ is to rely upon (to place one’s trust) in Jesus Christ for salvation. This salvation give us eternal life.
Some teach that sin does not exist. The Bible teaches differently. Both Christ and his apostles taught that sin is real. We see sin around us every day. Sin has a price. It pays wages. (Romans 6:23)
God gave his people the Israelites a list of 10 commandments. The reason God gave Israel these commandments was to teach them and us that we are sinners and God is holy. The souls of men belong to God. (Ezekiel 18:4) Those who die in sin will die the second death, which is eternal, bodily, conscious punishment in the lake of fire. (Revelations 20:14-
To be saved, a person must brutally honest. The honest truth is, we don’t have to look very hard to find sin in our own lives. Sin is unbelief. Unbelief is the sin which leads to disobedience. Disobedience is basis for all sin and leads to all the other sins in this world. Everyone is born in unbelief and disobedience, therefore, everyone is born in sin. This was passed on to us through the original sin of Adam and Eve. (Romans 5:12)
A good way to describe sin is say that we have “missed the mark”. X marks the spot, and we have missed it! That is what sin is. It is missing the mark. The Bible talks about missing the mark in Romans 3:23, where it says, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” To come short of God’s glory is to miss the mark. The truth is, we have all missed the mark. We are all sinners. “For there is none righteous no not one.” (Romans 3:10)
Repentance is a change of mind toward God, Christ and sin that results in a changed life. For every believer or saved person,there are two areas of repentance in their life.
The first area of repentance is in the area of their unbelief of the Son of God. The second area of a true believer’s repentance is toward sin in their lives generally.
Repentance is not turning from all sin in the sense of some sort of sinless perfection; it is a change of mind toward unbelief and sin so that the sinner no longer intends to walk in rebellion against God.
The apostle Paul, in Acts 26:20 gave us a clear understanding of the two areas of repentance in just one verse!
The verse says: “But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.”
“Repent and turn to God” =Change of mind and heart concerning Jesus Christ.
“Works meet for repentance”= Outward change results by inward faith. Refusal of a sinful walk, which produces a change in behaviour.
Faith. Everything about true repentance hinges on FAITH. Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
All of this comes by the power of God! The Holy Spirit enables us to have repentance and faith. He gives understanding and light to the Word of God, the scriptures, and to mans darkened understanding.
“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:18