I always used to feel that I am so privileged to be born a Christian. That I knew about Jesus when I was growing up. That I followed everything I was told to do, following religious activities. But JESUS did not ask to follow a religion. He said Follow me….
I knew about Jesus… how he was born and how he died. I celebrated Christmas and Easter and so many Christian festivals and days. But the question is was I saved? Will following a Religion Save us or following Jesus save us?… I agree that religion guides us to follow Jesus, but many of us are blindly following the rituals and not understanding what is needed.
What does being SAVED means?
Jesus is our Saviour and Messiah and when we believe what he has done for us and acknowledge him as our Lord and Saviour our SINS are washed away, we have a new clean slate with no SINS at all, it is as white as Snow because now GOD remembers it no more.When we die, we are punished for our SINS and if we have no sins then we won’t be punished and so we are SAVED, we have eternal life we won’t be punished because Jesus took that punishment for us. But we are not immune to SINS. Because God has given us a choice to either follow him on the right path or SIN again. When we are saved its not because we KNOW about Jesus but because we believe he died for us and we are willing to repent for our SINS and Sin no more. When I say no more it literally means SIN NO MORE. Confession is a means to ask forgiveness from GOD for our SINS daily, but we need to REPENT…. Turn away from doing SIN…
BUT I AM HUMAN…I AM BOUND TO SIN ……ITS HUMAN NATURE TO SIN….
1John 3:9 says Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
If we have Christ in Us…and when we are baptized and are born again… then we cannot SIN…. Is that possible?
When we believe in Jesus the Holyspirit comes to live within us and through the holyspirit we are being sanctified, cleansed and guided. When we are saved, we don’t instantly stop sinning again. But the holy spirit now in us, helps us to refrain from sin as long as we are WILLING to listen to the holyspirit and willing to change.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 says But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
When we repent …it is willing to change and turn AWAY from our SIN and When we are saved…Jesus is willing to forgive us of our SINS.
What NEXT???……SALVATION….
Being SAVED was only the start but SALVATION is an entire process, and the holyspirit helps us to work out our individual SALVATION.
Mark 16:16 says He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
To be saved you have to believe in JESUS.
The dictionary definition of believe……is to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.
All my childhood I knew about Jesus. I have followed all the religious rituals; I have prayed to GOD and GOD answered my prayers. But was that believing GOD or Knowing about GOD? I know what the bible talks about GOD and Jesus and so do many of us who read the bible. We only know what we have read about GOD in the Bible. The bible says Faith comes by hearing the word of GOD and so I read it again and again and again…NAH……
I was bored reading the BIBLE … I just couldn’t go past Exodus in the Old testament and couldn’t go past John in the New testament … But I knew all the important characters and their stories from the bible. I was bored because I did not understand what was written in ACTS and what it meant and what the Epistles meant. I just knew these were written by Paul and sent to the Churches but I could not grasp anything …
But this was because I was told to read the Bible…. but my heart was not seeking GOD… I had faith in GOD because I was taught that and when I prayed to GOD and GOD answered me it was because he is a good father. But he answered my prayers that is when my faith started to increase in GOD, through my own experiences. He always had my back because he is a faithful father. He loves me and he kept calling onto me and speaking to me. I only had to Listen, but I would only pray to God and tell him what I wanted and that was prayer for me. Knowing about GOD changed to having faith in GOD through experiences and reading stories and wonderful testimonies giving HOPE that if GOD can do this for others, then he will do it for me. I wasn’t a bad person and I knew I am saved because I was taught that. I HAD FAITH in JESUS…….I believed Jesus is my Saviour and Messiah…..But as I was growing up I drifted away, GOD became less important and the WORLD became more and going to Church was only a ritual because I was born a Christian and raised up a Christian. I had to believe in JESUS. But was that believing or just knowing something what my Parents had taught me. I ONCE BELIEVED but while growing up I started questioning the whole idea.
We all have encounters with GOD in our life and we need that moment to define our relationship with GOD. When I pray, I believe GOD will do that for me because that is FAITH … because I was taught that and I believe that.
Jesus only said If you believe in Me you will be SAVED. Not know about me …. believe in me.
So I can say that while growing up there were times when I believed in Jesus and then times when I stopped and then back again believed in Jesus.
When I believe in Jesus my trust and hope is all in Jesus. The time I stopped believing was when I started accepting the WORLD… thinking through the eyes of Science that GOD could not have created the world and all this was just a story or I believed in Evolution, believed that praying to idols was OK as its respecting the GODs of the heathens. Trying to blend in with Society so I could be acceptable by my friends. This is the time where most of us try to explain or find excuses why the bible is not real. We question it logically, become sceptical about everything written in the bible and became an atheist……i.e. believe in a ‘so-called Power’… but not GOD… I too had similar moments in my Life and when I look back, I feel so dumb to believe in something that the world showed me and not believe the REAL GOD.
1 Corinthians 8:1 says Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
Even though you have the knowledge…. It is of no use because its not real, what is real is the true GOD and believing in JESUS because he is LOVES you and DIED for you to be FREE. We do not need answers for everything, what we need is to trust in GOD.
Now the question is once upon a time if I was SAVED because I believed in JESUS then when I stopped believing will I still be saved?
No…. Because Jesus says He who believes and is baptized will be saved…
This is in the present tense…. BELIEVES ……So every moment I take a breath has to be a belief in JESUS, in his resurrection, acknowledging the Truth that he is the SON of GOD and he died for me. So when I was saved … my sins were washed away by his blood. But when I went back to my old life and stop believing, I let in the SIN come back again. I was a slave to SIN again and was no longer under the blood of Jesus because I stopped believing and when I don’t acknowledge what Jesus did on the CROSS, the sin is still on me and when I die I will be judged for the new sins not the old ones.
1 John 1:9 says If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But to do that we still need to believe in Jesus….
But then Jesus said I will send a helper and he will not leave you so what happens when you stop believing? When we stop believing the holyspirit within us is quenched but we can rekindle it when we start believing again.
We are saved when we continually believe in JESUS. Have continued faith in him.
This is controversial because many believe that ONCE SAVED IS ALWAYS SAVED ….So How do we reach a point from believing to not believing??
When we have more of the WORLD in us, we incline towards the world and stop believing …it takes time but then we stop believing eventually. And when we have more of WORD in us it increases our FAITH and we start believing. Whether it is reading the Bible or hearing from people about Jesus, about their testimonies… We start to incline towards Jesus.
1 Peter4:16-18 says 16Yet if c let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.17For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”
I was really taken aback when I read this… Judgement starts from the house of GOD and many of us even though we say we believe in JESUS have more of world in us and are moving rapidly towards a point where we will stop believing in Jesus, we will only have a ‘TAG’ calling us ‘Christians’. It goes on to say if the righteous are scarcely saved so chances are even though we believe in JESUS, but we backslide then we may not be saved or may just barely be saved. It was scary and I don’t want to live in fear that I won’t be saved … I want to live with confidence and faith that I AM SAVED because I believe in JESUS and I am standing FIRM on that faith.
John 15:4-5 says Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
So Jesus asks us to abide in him and he in us…This happens only if we believe in Jesus and are willing to change for Jesus… Obey the 2 commandments and allow the Holyspirit to cleanse and sanctify us… only then do we have Christ live in us and only then will we produce a fruit. So, if we have the Holyspirit working through us only then will we see the fruit of the holy spirit too …
Galatians 5:22-23 says but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
If you can identify these with yourself or people around you are observing these qualities in you then it’s the holyspirit working in you and if not then GET UP… ITS TIME THAT you LISTEN to the HOLYSPIRIT…
When we believe in JESUS, we become part of Christ’s body and like every part of a body you too have a function and that is your calling. How will you feel if your hand does not know what to do and so it does not perform its function. In the same way we ought to ask GOD what is our calling and purpose and once we know that we need to perform as per that and the Holyspirit will give you gifts to perform according to the function and calling that you have as long as you ask GOD and hear him.
Matthew 24:12-13 says And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
We must continually believe in JESUS and not let our faith be wavered in JESUS. There will be a lot of obstacles that will come in our way questioning our faith, many situations will come that will have us doubt whether GOD is watching us or not…Pestilence will come our way and we will question is GOD really going to heal me… and all this is bound to happen and will bring in fear so we may lose our faith in JESUS and stop believing in JESUS….BUT we should endure it till the end.
So now if I have faith and believe in Jesus. I will want to have a connection with Jesus and Yes Christ is always with me so what connection are we talking about??
So, If I say I love my MOM and I don’t call her or speak to her or Listen to her will my love become less or faith in my MOM become less? The Answer is ‘NO’ if I do not call her and speak to her we will not be well connected because I won’t know what’s happening in her life and she does not know what’s happening in my life. We will grow distant and will not be connected but the LOVE will not change or faith will not change… because I know she is my MOM and I have blind faith that she will always have my back.
So, what happens when we are not connected to GOD? This is more complicated because we have not seen GOD. We have faith and trust in something which we do not see and only when we stay connected to GOD through prayer, through reading his word do we grow in faith. FAITH comes by hearing the word of GOD because when we hear his word it nurtures our spirit and we grow in spirit. We may give so many excuses why we do not have time for PRAYER… and that our faith is strong in GOD. But if we are not connected to GOD and rather than spending time with GOD, we are more occupied by worldly activities then FAITH slowly becomes less. Prayer should be our lifestyle and not a 5-minute talking to GOD where its only us asking GOD all we need. Prayer should be thanking GOD whenever you get a chance even in your busy schedule hence bible says give thanks to GOD all the time. Prayer is praising God whenever you feel the Joy and the presence of GOD near you which is anytime and not a fixed Praise and worship of 10-20 mins. Talking to God should be all the time. Many times, people speak to themselves, try speaking to GOD… tell him how your day was, what you did, were you exhausted or troubled ask him solutions to your problems and see how GOD responds. And above all SEEK GOD with ALL your heart.
I AM SAVED because I BELIEVE IN JESUS….
What do you Believe?
Ambassadors of Christ 