Believing the cross was needed to ensure the payment for our sins occurred through a blood sacrifice is important. Believing that blood had to happen by Jesus being the Sacrifice is essential. This daily devotional looks at how knowing that needs to be heart knowledge, not just head knowledge.
Nuggets
- God is adamant that we have to come to salvation His way.
- Believing in Jesus means we are confident in our hearts that Jesus offered His life on the cross so that His blood would pay the penalty for our sins.
- Knowing of Christ isn’t enough — we have to believe and be committed to Him.
Devotions in the Love Led to the Cross series
We don’t become a regenerated person until we believe. There are specific things we must believe, not just anything we want.
Let's Put It into Context
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV)
- God’s character is love.
- God does not discriminate on who He loves.
- Because of His love for us, God gave the best gift He could — part of Himself.
- Because God wanted our relationships restored, He gave Jesus freely and willingly to die to be our Sacrifice.
- We can only gain salvation through God’s gift, secured by Jesus.
- We cannot be in a position to accept Christ of the cross until we recognize we need Him.
- We need to follow the steps of salvation in order for Jesus’s shedding His blood on the cross to cover our sins.
- Only God can regenerate us, which He does through the Holy Spirit.
Why Is There Only One Way to Salvation?
God is adamant that we have to come to salvation His way.
- “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4: 12 NIV).
- “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below” (Ex. 20: 3-4 NIV).
- “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (Jn. 14: 6 NIV).
Worldview people call disciples intolerant when we mention the fact that we can only receive salvation through believing in Jesus. Spurgeon wrote, “We are not really intolerant, for we are but echoing the words of Him that speaketh from heaven, that there is no salvation out of Him.”
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Whether worldview people think God’s salvation cannot save us or that it is not the only way, really matters not. Either way, they are rejecting God’s salvation.
The result will be the same. God will be victorious in the end.
Wardlaw argued that the exclusiveness of the Plan of Salvation is the result of God’s divine nature. God alone decided that man would be eligible for salvation and, as the one to Whom the original offense was directed, what the restitution would be.
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Liddon reminded us that other religions can have some elements of truth in them. Still, those religions fall short because they do not acknowledge the sole saving power of Jesus. Unless they preach Christ crucified and risen to save us from our sins, they will not lead to justification and regeneration.
We cannot rely on mankind’s systems to save us. Education helps prepare us for this life. Science develops many things that make this life better. Liddon reminds us that neither will secure salvation for us.
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To me, that also means religion on its own can’t save us. Church attendance — the ceremony and pageantry of it — means nothing without the personal relationship with God.
Believing Has to be Heart-Level
“… that whoever believes in him …” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV)
Believing in Jesus means we are confident in our hearts that Jesus offered His life on the cross so that His blood would pay the penalty for our sins.
Sin entered into the world because of Adam and Eve’s original sin. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5: 12 ESV).
Glossary
God does not want the separation caused by that sin to last throughout eternity. He designed the Plan of Salvation hinging on Jesus’ blood sacrifice to break the power of sin and restore us to being His children.
Wardlaw reminded us of the completeness of God’s Plan of Salvation. He wrote, “It is a salvation worthy in all respects of God, and fully meeting the wants of man.”
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When we accept the Plan of Salvation, we are saying that we hold it to be true that Jesus died so that we would no longer be separated from God.
Smith gave us a jumble of words, but it hit some very important high points. Included were the faith and repentance we talked about in the last devotion along with adoption and renewal (or regeneration as we called it). What comes out of our acceptance of salvation is joy, knowledge, love, and happiness — that lasts forever.
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Don’t get caught up when it says we are saved by the name of Jesus. Begg explained that means by His Person.
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Then we get another churchy word — propitiation. Propitiation means that a substitute is offered to avoid God’s wrath.
Jesus was the substitute for us on the cross. It should have been us up there. Jesus had never sinned — we did.
But no one could substitute for Jesus. He was the only perfect sacrifice. God would not accept anything less.
More than Head Knowledge
Knowing of Christ isn’t enough — we have to believe and be committed to Him.
Unbelief is a sin. I think it is the unpardonable sin. If God wants us to stop sinning, then we have to stop not believing.
Glossary
Some might see that as limiting those who might reap the benefits of being a child of God. It isn’t.
Glover argued that “All our training in this world is a training for faith. All the joys of life are joys of trust. It is not a question whether faith shall be the condition of salvation. It is a necessity in the nature of things.” Smith reminded us that we are given the tools needed to find our way to salvation.
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Each of us must decide for ourselves whether we are going to believe in the Christ of the cross. Our salvation cannot come through someone else. Mom and Dad couldn’t decide that I was saved. I have to make up my own mind after God has used the Holy Spirit to call me to salvation.
Making the Connections
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mk. 1: 14-15 ESV)
How do we know we really have been born again? I mean, it is all just a mind thing.
Masden helped us with that. He wrote that we will get conformation from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will meet up with our spirit and verify our status in our consciousness.
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We will be able to see God’s grace at work within our lives and see the change regeneration has brought. Old desires will no longer have a strong hold on us because we will want a relationship with God.
A regenerated soul brings us joy and comfort. We get peace from being adopted into God’s family.
Glossary
Noel reminded us that regeneration occurs at conversion. It doesn’t happen later on on the sanctification process — where we have cleaned up our act and become more like God. It is at the very beginning when we are still sinful.
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Spurgeon argued that salvation is more than restoring us to pre-fall settings. He wrote, “It first heals our wounds, removes our diseases, takes away our curse, puts our feet upon the rock Christ Jesus, and baying (sic) thus done, at last it lifts our heads to be crowned with the King of heaven.” Salvation is more than just the belief that we gain Heaven and miss hell.
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Martin said something interesting. He said that our inability to save ourselves shows our weakness.
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Ooo, baby. Aren’t we independent? We don’t like having to rely on someone else.
That just shows, however, that we try to rely on our strength and not God’s.
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73: 26 ESV).
How Do We Apply This?
We need to
- Strengthen our faith in Jesus
- Repent of our disregarding our salvation
- Embrace the future.
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We can’t think that we can dictate how we gain salvation or what the punishment will be if we do not ABCD.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Let’s look at it this way. There have been a couple of instances of gunshots in the neighborhood in the last couple of weeks. Let’s say Adam and [your loved ones’ name] are caught in the crossfire and are killed. The shooter is captured.
Are we going to be comfortable with the shooter saying, “As for punishment, I will be sentenced to …”?
No, we are going to say, “You broke the law. You don’t get to determine your punishment.”
We broke God’s laws. Why do we think we get to determine the punishments and how we are restored?
It isn’t up for debate how or why God has decreed Jesus’ death on the cross to be the only way to salvation. The only answer we have to determine is are we going to accept that and submit to God or not.
Father God. We believe in Jesus. We know in our hearts that He is the Christ of the cross. Help us to show others what He has done for us so they, too, can place their faith and trust in Him. Amen.
What do you think?
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