As a child of God I believe that to be “saved” can only happen because of Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection three days later. It was His death that paid the penalty for mine—and your—sins. There is nothing I can do to enter the kingdom of Heaven because I am a sinner in need of a Savior.
I love David Platt’s book Follow Me because it explains clearly what has become a misconception of people all around the world. He says “For far too long we have convinced one another that we are basically good people who have simply made some bad decisions. Whether we’ve lied or cheated or stolen or taken God’s name in vain, we’ve all made mistakes. We just need to invite Jesus to come into our hearts, and He will forgive us of all these things” (Platt, Follow Me).
Platt goes on to say that this misconception leads us to believe that we get to have a part in our salvation. That it is us who invite Christ into our hearts. This could not be further from the truth. We cannot do anything. Let me say that again. WE CANNOT do anything to receive God’s forgiveness for our sins. This can be seen when Platt says “Christianity does not begin with our pursuit of Christ, but with Christ’s pursuit of us” (Platt, Follow Me).
We can believe that Jesus died for our sins, that He rose three days later, that it was me He died for. But even the demons believe that Jesus is God and fear Him. It is obedience to God’s word that produces a transformed heart which is evidence of God’s salvation in the life of the believer. “Clearly, people who claim to believe in Jesus are not assured eternity in heaven. On the contrary, only those who obey Jesus will enter his Kingdom” (Platt, Follow Me).
As part of my daily time with God, I study His Scripture and spend time in prayer. Another aspect of my time with Him is by reading books, like Follow Me, in order to learn and grow more in my walk with Christ. There will never be a time when there is nothing more I can learn
One of the books I recently started is What Jesus Demands from the World by John Piper. Let me just go ahead and tell you that you should head straight to LifeWay and buy this book. The introduction alone is not only convicting but inspiring. There are so many parts from it that I love, but this part was phenomenal:
“He [God] does not send His people to make disciples with a sword. His kingdom does not come by force, but by truth and love and sacrifice and the power of God. ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting’ (John 18:36). Jesus’ followers do not kill to extend his kingdom. They die. ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Mark 8:34). ‘Some of you they will put to death’ (Luke 21:16). Not only will they put the followers of Jesus to death, but they will do it in the name of their religion. ‘The hour is coming,’ Jesus says, ‘when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God’ (John 16:2).”
The marking of a true disciple is their love for Christ, their undying obedience to Him, the evidence of their transformed heart and their willingness to spread the Gospel. It is their daily act of picking up their cross and following Jesus above and before anything or anyone else. It is their willingness to be persecuted as Jesus was. It is their willingness to die for the sake of the Gospel. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul writes “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
“We email, Facebook, tweet and text with people who are going to spend eternity in either heaven or hell. Our lives are too short to waste on mere temporal conversations when massive eternal realities hang in the balance. Just as you and I have no guarantee that we will live through the day, the people around us are not guaranteed tomorrow either. So let’s be intentional about sewing the threads of the gospel into the fabric of our conversations every day, knowing that it will not always be easy, yet believing that eternity will always be worth it” (Platt, Follow Me).
