“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—Ephesians 2:8

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. John 19:30.

When the Judgment is Done

Lord, your love has been relentless.
Offered freely to this prisoner of sin.
I ran from you for many painful years
But you chased me down and drew me in.
Your patience, Lord, has been endless.
You’ve gone to great lengths to keep me safe.
And when I was fenced in by sin,
Lord, your grace became my gate.

I am loved by God the Father.
And I am loved by God the Son,
I am loved by the Holy Spirit.
I am loved by a God who’s three in one. 

Narrow is the path to your kingdom.
Where you, Father, have prepared a feast.
This eternal banquet is not for everyone.
For, in your kingdom the most becomes the least.
God you say I can have a place at the table.
If I only knock and ask to come in.
You promise to accept me as I am
If I promise to repent of all my sins.

I am forgiven by God the Father.
And I am forgiven by God the Son.
I am forgiven by the Holy Spirit.
My God forgives me three in one. 

God, you’ve warned us that the day is near
When the door will be closed and sealed.
Only those at the table will be safe
When your final plan is revealed.
It will be the day of final judgment.
The results of which we should already know;
For you will judge what’s in our hearts
And ignore all that we did for show.

I will be judged by God the Father
And I will be judged by God the Son
I will be judged by the Holy Spirit
Judged by my God who’s 3 in 1

Lord, when my time here is over,
When I’m called to defend my life,
I hope I will have finished well
Because I have boldly shared your light.
For on that day I finally meet you
As I kneel to worship at your throne
I pray that I will hear these words from you,
“Good job my faithful servant, welcome home.”

If I have pleased God the Father,
If I have been saved by God the Son,
If I have honored the Holy Spirit,
I will be home when the judgment’s done.
©Linda Troxell 09/09/2019

Where will you be when the judgment is done? I assume that if you are reading this openly proclaimed Christian blog, you expect to be in heaven. But will you be? Will I? We like to think that just because we are Christians we will be in heaven. Well, at least I like to believe it.

But is it really that easy? Can we really be saved simply by saying a prayer asking Jesus to be our Lord and Savior? That certainly seems to be the belief held by many non-Christians. And it seems that belief is the source of much of the criticism of Christianity.

Because that’s what they believe about our salvation they have determined being saved as a Christian is just too easy. You have probably been asked some version of the question, “So, what, you can just do whatever you want your whole life and before you die accept Jesus and you go to heaven?” I’ve often been asked such questions.

But we know that there is really more to it than that. It’s more than just asking Jesus to be our savior. First we have to believe a few things, then we have to repent of a few things. And the belief and the repentance must be sincere.

For, we can’t overlook that God knows our heart. So, if we are life-long unbelievers and on our death beds we think, “It can’t hurt to try.” When we pray for Jesus to be our savior, God will know that in our hearts we don’t believe. 

We know, or should know, as Christians, that we have to believe in our hearts that He actually is our Lord and savior. But it’s more than believing Jesus saved us, we must believe how He saved us.

We have to accept the whole story as true; we must believe who He is, why He came, why He died, and the biggest stumbling block for many, we must believe in His resurrection.  

I have often heard from Christians that in their early walk with Christ, once they believed in Him, once they had repented and then asked Jesus to be their savior, they were unsure if they were actually saved. And they didn’t know how to find out if they were, indeed, saved. So, how do we know that we are saved?

It is still believed by some that we can’t know we’re saved until the Holy Spirit comes upon us. They believe that receiving the Spirit is a separate and distinct event from being saved and we’ll know it because we will speak in tongues when it happens.

Others, however, say that we automatically receive the Holy Spirit when we are saved. This group believes that being saved is how we know the Holy Spirit lives in us, not the other way around. What’s more, they believe that speaking in tongues isn’t necessary.   

This group believes what I think most Christians believe about how we know we are saved, we know by the changes in ourselves, in our life and in our actions; we know by our fruits if you will.

However, we know it doesn’t matter what people say. It’s what the Bible says that should concern us. So, what does the Bible say about how we are saved?

In Romans 10 Paul says that by declaring Jesus is Lord and by be believing God raised Him from the dead we will be saved. “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9.

I think that raised from the dead part can be a stumbling block for many. Except, of course, those who were there and experienced it.

Why is believing in Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection so important to being saved? Well, to answer that we will have to look a little deeper into the meaning of His death.

You probably remember that Jesus’ death on the cross is the culmination of the law, the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new covenant.

In the old covenant, God’s people were expected to obey all of His laws. When they broke a law, to be forgiven, they had to perform a lot of complicated rituals to atone, most significantly the sacrifice of animals.

There had to be a blood sacrifice to atone for sin, for the wages of sin is death. However, after 4,000 years in which God’s people had not mastered the laws, He came to understand that they couldn’t keep His laws perfectly.

After all, there were about a gazillion laws. It was almost impossible to even know them all, let alone follow them to the letter. Plus, we are humans born into a fallen and sinful world, we have the nature of sin.

Consequently, we can do nothing perfectly, only God is perfect. So God had to go back to the drawing board, so to speak. He had to figure out how His people could atone for their sins without so many laws they could never remember.

We know that Jesus was God’s answer for the atonement of our sins. He sent Him to die on the cross so our sins could be forgiven. But for us to be saved by this outrageously generous act, we have to believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he died on the cross and that he was resurrected on the third day.

Paul made another important point in Romans 10. He said that everyone can be saved if they call on the Lord. But, he points out that we cannot call on someone in whom we don’t believe.

And he follows up by pointing out that we can’t believe in someone of whom we have never heard? And the only way for us to hear about Jesus is if someone preaches the good news; thus the great commission.  How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:“How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” Romans 10:14

Paul made it clear that our faith in Christ as the one who paid for our sin, is the key to being declared righteous by God. Paul said that if anyone trusts in Christ for his or her salvation and believes that He is the son of God who was raised from the dead, that person will be saved by God’s grace through their faith.

By God’s grace through their faith. This phrase is often heard in Christian circles. Have you ever wondered in what exactly we must have faith to be saved?

I know it sounds like kind of an odd question, obviously we must have faith in Jesus. But it seems like there is more to that phrase than just a general faith in Jesus.

What is the faith we must have in Jesus? Is it simply faith that He lived, simply faith that He is the son of God? Do we only have to believe in his crucifixion or simply believe he was resurrected?

Well, when I thought it through, I realized it was one of the many Christian phrases that I often heard and just assumed I understood. But do I?

I have had many experiences in life in which I was sure I understood something, even thought it was self-evident, only to find out I didn’t know at all.

So, after thinking about this phrase for a while, I knew it was one of those things I didn’t understand at all. I decided it was time for me to explore it a bit more.

The Bible tells us that it is by the grace of God we are saved through our faith and that we have no part in procuring our salvation. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—Ephesians 2:8.

We know that grace is an unearned, unmerited, and undeserved gift from God. So, the Bible tells us that God gave us the gift of salvation which we didn’t deserve, and we didn’t earn.

But it also says that we are saved by His grace, but through our faith. To me this means that without our faith we could not receive God’s gift of salvation. That brings me full circle to wondering in what, exactly, we need to have faith for God to give us salvation?  

I think most of us would answer that question without a second thought. Of course we must have faith in Jesus. But let’s give it a second thought. In what about Jesus must we have faith?

Again, easy right? We must have faith in the whole story, that Jesus is the son of God, died on the cross for our sins, and was raised on the third day. That’s what I thought too. But that’s not what the scripture says. So, I pondered and looked deeper.

After looking deeper, much pondering, and putting together some things from different places in the Bible, I think I understand better exactly what grace through faith actually means.

And I think I understand, too, that in which we must have faith to accept God’s salvation for us. Let’s take the phrase apart a bit to understand better.

We know, as discussed above, that we can do nothing to earn our salvation, it is given to us through God’s grace; it is an unearned, unmerited, undeserved gift from God to us.

And we have all been told that we must believe in all that we know about Jesus to be given salvation. But I couldn’t really understand how those two things were linked together. How does our faith in Jesus get us a gift we don’t deserve, haven’t earned and, indeed, can’t earn?

And then I came across another Christian phrase, this one not heard as often, but still one whose meaning I assumed I knew; the finished work of Christ.

I thought I understood it because I linked it to what Jesus said with His last breath, “It is finished.” I thought He was saying, my part is over, I’m finished, goodbye. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. John 19:30.

But that isn’t exactly what He meant. This time when I read the scripture in the context of trying to understanding what grace through faith actually means, I asked myself, ‘What was the purpose of Jesus’ incarnation?”

In this way I thought I could determine what He was referring to as finished. And I came across another Christian phrase that also doesn’t mean exactly what I thought it meant. That phrase is “Jesus came to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.”

The statement is self-explanatory as far as it goes. But in its simplification of the facts, it is misleading, at least for me. Because it isn’t as simple as Jesus coming to die for our sins. Remember, there had to be a blood sacrifice for sin to be forgiven.

And Jesus came to be the stand in blood sacrifice necessary for our sins to be forgiven once and for all. So, when He said, “it is finished” He was saying my work is finished, the sacrifice is complete, and the sins are forgiven. That is the finished work of Christ.

When I finally put that all together I had the Epiphany I was looking for. Now, forgive me if all of you have already worked through this, or just instinctively knew it. Sometimes I’m slow.

But I finally understood. God wants to give us the gift of salvation, a gift we didn’t earn and don’t deserve. However, the law of sin and death, says there must be a blood sacrifice for our sins.   

Jesus came to earth to fulfill the law by living a sinless life, meaning there was no blood sacrifice owed for His life. This enabled Him to become a blood sacrifice for our sins. Once He completed that sacrifice, His work was complete. We could now accept God’s gift of salvation.

However, we can only accept the gift if we have faith in the finished work of Christ at the cross. That is, if we have faith that the work of Christ, which culminated on the cross when He became the substitute blood sacrifice that allowed our sins to be forgiven, is sufficient for our salvation forever more. That is the faith through which we will be saved by the grace of God.

The most important part of that belief never seems to be preached. Nor is the entire concept taught beginning to end, for that matter. But the most important part of this faith we must have is that it is forever sufficient for our salvation; forever!

There is nothing we can do that will change it, and there is nothing we need do to change it. For, the very moment we believe, that is we have faith, in Jesus’ finished work at the cross, the gift of salvation is ours by God’s grace.

I don’t know if this was helpful for you. I hope it was. It helped me to understand things that are important to me in my faith but which I couldn’t have grasped until now.

I think God expects us to grow in our understanding of our faith as we walk with Him. Not just that we have more faith as we go. I think He expects us to have a deeper and deeper understanding of what He tells us in His word.

I think He also expects us to have a deeper understanding of His expectations of us as His children and of our responsibilities as Christians.

We can’t do that simply by going to church. We can’t do that by simply reading a verse or two in the Bible each day. We can only do that by reading the Bible with a deep desire in our heart to understand God’s word. And if we are going to be successful, we need to ask God to help direct us and enlighten us.

In addition to reading the Bible, we must discuss what we read. We need to discuss the Bible with others of a like mind and especially with others whose minds are not so like ours.

Can it be difficult? Of course. We are reading a Bible written no earlier than 2000 years ago and much of it 4,000 years ago or more. Although it is inspired by God, it is written by men whose culture has very little resemblance to ours.

We are reading a book that has been translated from a richly idiomatic language reflecting the culture of its writers, to our language that to the extent it is idiomatic, the idioms reflect our very different culture at a very different time.

But there are many ways in which we can find help in our pursuit. There are commentaries available right on our phone. There are articles online written by every kind of Christian as well.

There are Bible study groups at churches, Bible studies online, and individual Bible studies. However, we must be careful that we don’t just blindly accept all that we read. Remember, that’s what wise counsel is for.

I think it is really worth the effort. And I find that the more positive mindset I have as I approach God’s word, the better my experience.  When I can approach it with a desire to learn, it is so much easier.

And I also find that if I don’t read it alone, if I pray and ask God to join me in my reading, asking Him to open my mind and my heart to understand what He wants me to understand, my experience is richer and more enjoyable.

If you don’t already have a plan for reading the Bible that enriches your relationship with God, I hope you will seek one. Because I believe you will learn things about Christianity, things about Jesus, and things about God that you could have never guessed were true.

Let’s Pray,

Father, we approach you in reverent fear mindful that your power is beyond our comprehension, and that your love is beyond our comprehension too. Lord, we know you have expectations of us as your Children and that we have responsibilities as Christians. And Lord, we want to meet those expectations and responsibilities. But so often we allow the enemy to convince us that this world is our home and that it is more important to live our lives in the world than it is to spend time with you or to read your Word.  We ask you to forgive us for that. Because, Lord, when this life is over we want to be with you in heaven. And not by the skin of our teeth, but by finishing in a way that makes you proud as we defend our lives to you. For that to happen, we have much to learn about your expectations, your desires and your commands. And we can only learn it if we read your story which you have given to us in your Word. And while reading your Word can be difficult, we know that it is the most important activity we can engage in along with praying and spending time with you. So, today Lord, we ask for your help in making a plan to spend more time with you and in your Word. We know a verse or two a day is not sufficient to learn everything we need to know or to receive the guidance and direction that we need and that you want to give to us. We ask too, Lord, that you help us to stick to our plan when the time comes that we just don’t want to do what we know we should. Remind us Lord that it is your wish that we spend time with you. Remind us what an honor it is that the one who created the universe, the author of life, wants to meet with us each day. And remind us Lord that we always feel better in every way after we have spent time with you. We ask all of this in the holy name of Jesus,
Amen

Points for Pondering or for Prayer
Or
Perhaps for Putting Pen to Paper

Do you sometimes come across statements in the Bible or statements used by other Christians that you don’t quite understand?    Is it important for you to understand these things?      If it is, what do you do about it?

What is your understanding of how one is saved?     

What is your understanding of how one knows if one is saved?

What is your understanding of the Holy Spirit and when and how He comes to live in us?

What is your opinion about speaking in tongues?       Have you ever spoken or prayed in tongues?

Has anyone you know prayed or spoken in tongues?

How much time do you spend reading the Bible?   

If you find parts of it difficult to understand what do you do about that?

List a few of the things in the Bible that you have had difficulty understanding.

Is there someone you trust with whom you could discuss these things?    If there is will you discuss it with them?

If there is and you won’t discuss it with them, why not?