God has been reaching out since the beginning of time—desiring to live in a close relationship with all of humankind But because of our sin…because we have turned our backs on God and (in essence) told Him to butt out of our lives…we are separated from Him.
But God has created a way for us to reconnect to Him by offering us salvation: an incredible gift of grace that comes through the life, death, and resurrection of His son, Jesus. And we receive this gift of grace the moment we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior—turning our lives over to Him completely.
Each of us comes to this decision differently because each one of us has a uniquely different experience…or journey to Jesus.
Even though each of our journeys is unique, the Bible shows us that there are some key (and consistent) components that every true follower of Jesus experiences. Let’s look at those five key components…
As you may already know, the “gospel” literally means “good news.” The good news of the gospel begins with God, the Creator of everything. And He is holy…which means set apart from anything that is un-holy. And God is perfect (or whole), without any defect. And He is righteous…which means God always does what is right. And He is just. His justice is always fair.
So, because God is the Creator; Holy, Righteous, Perfect and Just, we have a problem. We are none of those things. We are created by God (in his image), but — here’s the bad news — we are fallen and broken and un-very holy…imperfect, unrighteous and unjust. Just as the Apostle Paul writes in Romans…
“What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. And just in case you thought you could try to be good enough to earn good standing with God.” – Romans chapter 3, verses 9-12
How many broken links (or sins) does it take to break the chain of our connection to God)? The answer: One. All it takes is one broken link or one sin to break our connection God. And all of us have sinned—at least once. All of us have broken our connection to God. Another thing we might tell ourselves is, “If I really clean up my act…that will be enough to connect me back to God.” Once again, as Paul writes…
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23
So there it is. The Bad News.
But here’s the Good News. Here’s the gospel…
“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished — he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” – Romans 3:21-26
Sin separates us from God. And what is sin? The biblical definition of sin is actually an archery term meaning: missing the mark. We have all sinned or missed the mark of God’s perfection. And the punishment for this is death. Someone has to pay for these mistakes. We all know, deep in our hearts, what justice is. When a wrong has been committed, someone has to pay for it.
The Good News is that Jesus — the Incarnation or God in the Flesh — the one who never sinned or missed the mark, took our place and paid for our mistakes. Jesus took on ALL our sin when he died on the cross. The Apostle Paul put it this way…
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” – Romans 5:1-11
So, while we were still sinners…still living in our sinful way of life, God showed his love for us in Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. That’s GRACE. Grace is unmerited favor or getting something wonderful that you didn’t earn or deserve. And you can’t pay for it or earn it. All you can do is accept this wonderful, eternal gift. One of the best ways to remember the meaning of grace is this acronym: Grace = God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
At some point, after hearing the Gospel, you believe in your heart that all this stuff is true. That God is holy. That you are separated from Him and that you can only be reconciled or reconnected back to God through Jesus. And that belief is so strong that you are “cut to the heart”. You have that utter realization that the only way back to God is through Jesus. This is the way some of the first people to hear the Good News felt…
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” – Acts 2:37
This “cutting to the heart” can only come from God. Just as Jesus says here…
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” – John 6:44
Looking back over this, we Hear the Gospel, then Believe what we’ve heard and then we repent.
“To “repent” literally means to “turn away”. We must turn away from sin or turn our backs to sin…putting our backs to our old way of life. And when we turn from sin, we naturally turn towards God—doing a complete about face. As Jesus was spreading the Good News He said…
“The time has come,” (Jesus said). “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” – Mark 1:15
The next logical step to repenting from our old way of life, from our old life of sinning is to share this change in our hearts or to confess to some other people what’s happened.
Confession or to confess simply means to say it out loud—to say what is true out loud and publicly recognize that: God is holy and perfect and you are not. Confessing to other people means speaking to your belief that God has reconnected you back to Him through Jesus…because Jesus has taken your sin to the cross, and that you want to repent and turn away from your sin and your sinful past. Paul says it best here…
“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” – Romans 10:9-10
And so this journey to being a follower of Jesus begins with Hearing the Gospel, then Believing it, then Repenting for your past, followed by Confessing to some others, which leads to Baptism.
To re-cap this journey: We hear the Gospel (or Good News), we believe it, deep in our hearts, we repent for our old way of life without God, then we confess to some other people what has happened in our hearts, and then we are baptized.
But the journey isn’t over. It continues and will continue on and on and on because this is all about becoming more like Jesus. As we begin this new life as a follower of Jesus, we have this gift of the Holy Spirit…which is God’s Spirit literally living inside us…guiding us and prompting us to grow and become more and more like Him. More and more like Jesus. And we do this by following Jesus’ words found in the Bible—through Bible study. And we do this by living and acting as Jesus did. Doing the things Jesus did, like loving others and caring for the “least of these.” Just as Paul writes in Romans 6:5-14…
“If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” – Romans 6:5-14
Finally, if you still have any questions, please contact us and we will do our best to answer them.
