Your response is required

“…now is the time of God’s favor; now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Is this all just some “religious” history lesson or does it have something to do with me?

So far we have covered some central claims made by the Bible:

there is a God who loves us and knows us as individuals

we are all sinners

we are separated from God as a result of our sin

Christ died and rose again to allow us to be forgiven and restored to a relationship with God

Scripture tells each of us to make a decision with regard to these claims. We need to choose whether or not to regard them as true or false, fact or fiction, and we need to decide whether or not to accept the benefits won for us by Jesus to be restored in our relationship with God as a result.

To do this we must accept the claims of Christ as true and ask Jesus to be the Lord of our life (Romans 10:9). Jesus asks us to trade in our desires and our game plan for His. He requires that we make serving Him and finding His plan for our lives as our number one priority. In return, we are completely forgiven of all our sins - past present and future. We are promised that He will help us follow Him and change us in the process. And He promises we will be accepted into heaven when our earthly lives are over, where we will live with Him forever (John 14:2).

This is more than an intellectual assent to the facts. It requires a personal response and commitment to Him. The Bible tells us even demons believe the facts about Jesus to be true, but demons are not saved just because they know that God is real. God requires faith…our complete allegiance, our trust, our surrender to Him. And by this faith we will publicly identify with Christ.