Facts About Salvation

In today’s religious world, I think most people would agree that’s throne is one of tremendous mercy and grace, beyond our own comprehension. We receive a multitude of spiritual blessings from God through our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are freed from our sins through His sacrifice, and He can sympathize with our sins because, as we know from the book of Matthew, Jesus Himself was tempted to sin by Satan.

But there’s another concept that we see in the scripture that I feel like gets left out by many people in the religious world today. I cannot tell you the reason why, whether it’s because people just listen to whatever they want to hear, don’t actually read their Bibles, or are simply too self-righteous to accept all of Jesus’s teachings and recognize the doctrines that he have in the New Testament; the New Covenant. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is, but the idea is this…

Matthew 7:21-23

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ ²³ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Clearly, these are not my words. These are the Words of God, of Jesus Himself, found in the pages of each and every Bible. So why then do people ignore it? Something that seems so important – getting into Heaven – and people just blatantly ignore the facts.

Fact Number 1: Sin cannot enter into Heaven. If we do not follow God’s commands and become friends with Jesus, and if we are not baptized to share in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and if we are not blood covered and continually washed of our sins, then how can we expect to enter into Heaven on that final day?

Fact Number 2: Jesus came to lay down His life for His friends. As much as He wants to be, God is not and will not be friends with everyone, as we already saw in Matthew 7. If we don’t keep His commandments, then we are not His friends, and we cannot share in the sacrifice that Jesus made. Jesus very clearly explains this in the book of John.

John 15:13-14

¹³ Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.

And finally, Fact Number 3: God loves all of us. He sent His Son to die for us, even while we were still sinners. But we have to be willing to accept that sacrifice by following what God has commanded. Not a single person throughout the entirety of the Bible ever received God’s blessings and grace without first doing what He required of them. By following God’s will, we show our love for God. If we don’t love God, how can we go to Heaven?

So whatever your reason (excuse, more like it) has been up to this point, you need to move on from that. If you truly care about getting into heaven, then there is no time to waste with self-righteousness. Ignorance is not bliss. Everything could end tomorrow, and every person on this earth will be held accountable. Where will you be?