When Jesus is preaching He always says “Come, walk with me”. For us, it is sure that Jesus is with us in our everyday lives. We are sure of this because of our faith to Him. Therefore Jesus wants us to realize that if we follow him with all our hearts we are sure that we are in his protection but if you are away from Him, He is still with you that is because sometimes if we are making sins we come to realize the things that we’ve done wrong. God is very serious that we must be devoted in asking Him by means of our prayers, about the issues and relations of life.
If we really want Him to hear us, we better be wholehearted and persistent. In this section we have seen different reactions to Jesus. This is still what happens when people hear about Jesus today. Each of us must examine our own reaction to Jesus’ message. May God grant that all of us here may really trust Him. Jesus came to help people who needed him. They knew that they had sin in their lives. Jesus came to die for people like that. His death paid the price so that God would forgive their sin. Now God could send the Holy Spirit to continue his work in us.
The people did not completely understand these statements of Jesus until after his resurrection. God has shown us a different way in being right in his sight. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in the same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by His life. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God. Salvation is trusting and receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior. It’s trusting in the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary to pay for our sins!
It’s realizing there is absolutely nothing whatsoever you can do to save yourself and completely trusting in Jesus Christ to save you. It’s not any church that saves. It’s not baptism, not good works, not sacraments, not repenting, not praying through, not enduring to the end, not living a good life —it’s not anything you can do. Salvation is simply a process of confessing and believing. A man must confess that Jesus is Lord, which signifies his realization that Christ must have full rule over his life with all of His righteous requirements.
This confession of Christ as Lord also assumes that it is Christ who will work and fulfill His own righteousness within man. God said if you receive and trust in Jesus Christ you are saved. Notice it does not say you “might” or “could” be saved — but “shall be saved”. You are saved. Man without God makes his own plans, follows his own counsels and lives by his own rules. Nevertheless, because man was created for fellowship with God, there remains a dissatisfaction and longing within man that can only be fulfilled by God Himself. Jesus’ death was by public execution on a cross. The government said it was for blasphemy.
Jesus said it was to pay for our sin. After being severely tortured, Jesus’ wrists and feet were nailed to a cross where He hung, eventually dying of slow suffocation. A sword was thrust into His side to confirm His death. Because Jesus died on the cross, taking with Him all of humankind’s sin, He now offers us forgiveness, acceptance and a genuine relationship with Him. Jesus not only died for our sin, he rose from the dead. When he did, he proved beyond doubt that he can rightfully promise eternal life — that he is the Son of God and the only means by which we can know God.
God created you. Not only that, he loves you so much that he wants you to know him now and spend eternity with him. Jesus came so that each of us could know and understand God in a personal way. Jesus alone can bring meaning and purpose to life. We sense that separation, that distance from God because of our sin. Deep down, our attitude may be one of active rebellion or passive indifference toward God and his ways. The result of sin in our lives is death — spiritual separation from God. Although we may try to get close to God through our own effort, we inevitably fail.
Just knowing what Jesus has done for us and what he is offering us is not enough. To have a relationship with God, we need to welcome him into our life… We deserve to pay for our own sin. The problem is, the payment is death. So that we would not have to die separated from God, out of his love for us, Jesus Christ died in our place. On the cross, Jesus took all of our sin on himself and completely, fully paid for it. For Christ also died for sins… the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God…. he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, our sin doesn’t have to separate us from God any longer. Accepting Jesus means believing that Jesus is the Son of God, who he claimed to be, then inviting him to guide and direct our lives. Jesus is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who died for our sins. If we do not recognize our own failings and inadequacies, we cannot fully recognize what Jesus did and who He is. Thus, receiving Jesus begins by turning to Him for forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. We need to realize that we have done wrong things and that we are far from God.
Then we need to accept that Jesus died for our wrongdoings on the Cross at Calvary. God is Holy. We are sinful. By His very nature, God cannot have fellowship with us sinners. There is no amount of good that we can do to make up for our crimes against God. They must be punished. And the wages are Death. Somebody has to die. Oh, you’ll die physically, sin requires that. But you’ve got a choice about dying spiritually… God doesn’t want to remain your enemy and He does not want you to go to hell. In spite of our wickedness and rebellion, God loved us enough to send His only begotten Son to die for our sins.
Jesus did not die so that we could keep sinning and go to heaven. He is saving us from the guilt and the power of sin. When we were unsaved, sin is our boss and we can’t do anything but sin. We are under the wrath of a holy and just God. Murderers, thieves, fornicators, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, rebels, and all other spiritual lepers will not inherit the kingdom. The blood of Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. That means the blood took away the guilt of the sins we’ve committed and it has ushered us into a Father Child relationship with the Lord.
Through the blood of Jesus, we are to serve sin no more. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and that we are all under the judgment of God because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our efforts, sincerity, and good works alone will not guarantee us a place in heaven, but instead it is our faith in what Christ did on the cross along with obeying the gospel, and living faithfully until his return that will place us there. Please remember that Jesus was not some victim or just a baby in a manger–He was and is the eternal God and Savior who came to earth and gave His own blood for your sins.
After He accomplished this tremendous feat, He rose from the dead like He said He would. Jesus waits with open arms for those that want life. The choice is yours. If you’re sick of being alienated from God, if you’re tired of what this wicked and perverse world has to offer, if you want Jesus Christ as Lord of your life, if you want to be reconciled unto your Creator, if you want to go to heaven, if you want to escape hell — put your faith in the One who can do something about it. ?
