more on Salvation

There are many today who teach that a person must "accept" Jesus Christ into their heart as personal savior in order to be saved. While this certainly sounds good, unfortunately nowhere in the Bible do we find that a person must "accept Christ" in order to be saved. In John 1:11,12 we find something that sounds similar to this and there we read...

"He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name..."

Now this certainly sounds like it agrees with the idea of needing to "accept" Jesus, that is, until we read the next verse...

"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
(John 1:13)

Notice how this verse says that those who "receive" Jesus and believe in Him "were born". It speaks in the past tense. This is because as verse 13 said, "they were born not of blood (like in a physical child birth) nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God". Simply put, those who receive Jesus and believe in Him have been born of God. And this birth was not the product of their own will but it was the will of God that caused them to be born again. The fact that they believe and want to know the Lord Jesus is an evidence of this birth. John 3: 3-8 describes this birth as a "spiritual birth" which we must experience if we are to be saved. However, it is also careful to point out to us that it is a birth that cannot be observed. As John 3:8 says,

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

As we cannot physically see the wind but see the evidences of its presence as it blows by "so is everyone that is born of the Spirit". True believing is an evidence that a person has been born again. A person does not become born again because they believe -- they believe because they have been born again. Our salvation is totally and completely the work of God and a product of His Will, not our own will -- as John 1:13 declared. Faith (believing) is the evidence that God has done a work in your heart. In our own will, we would never choose to seek God as Romans 3:10,11 says,

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God."

Salvation always begins with God's action (which we cannot physically see) and always results in our action, as we act upon faith and begin to seek to know and grow in a relationship with the Lord. To say that a person must "accept" Christ in order to be saved is leading people to trust in their
own work of accepting and believing. The Bible is very clear that trusting in our own work in any way, can never lead to salvation (see Titus 3:5 and Romans 4:1-9 for example).

Where so many get led astray on this truth, I believe, is when they confuse this process of salvation with the invitation to salvation that the Lord extends to the whole world. The Lord invites every soul to come to Jesus Christ and find eternal life with the promise that whosoever "believes" in Him shall not perish (John 3:16). In fact, the Lord commands those who are saved to be witnesses to the Truth and invite everyone to come to Jesus that they might be saved. But the Lord is also very clear that,

"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:44

The other reason and really the main reason people get this truth all wrong, is because they are not listening to what the Bible actually says, but are rather leaning on their own understanding and listening to what other books or men are saying instead. In this day, so many are teaching an idea of "free will" that cannot be supported with the Bible...but for those who posses a love for the Truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10) there is only one thing that matters, and that one thing is

Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

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