God's Plan of Salvation

[RETIREDFAN1]

God’s Plan of Salvation

Adam and Eve brought sin into the world when they disobeyed the only command God gave them to follow. Sin has hounded mankind since then, coming between us and God, separating us from Him. 
Isaiah 59:2

God has offered to redeem humanity through the gift of His Grace. The Grace of God is offered freely to all humanity. God could have chosen to have continued to do as He did with those before the Flood. He could have put up with humanity until it became unbearable and then destroyed it and started over again. He didn’t do that. 

God could have simply ignored us, allowed us to live and die in our sins, and to burn for eternity without any hope of reconciliation to Him.  He didn’t do that, either. 

What God did do for us was to provide us a path to reconcile ourselves to Him. 
Romans 6: 23

God provided us with the free gift of Grace. A gift freely offered to all who will accept it. It is by the freely offered gift of His Grace that we can be saved. 
 Ephesians 1: 3 - 10
Ephesians 2:4 - 10

Without the Grace of God, we would have no hope at all of eternal life. The only thing we would have to look forward to without God’s freely offered gift of Grace would be an eternity in the lake of fire. But God DID offer us His gift. God DID provide us a way, a path to reconcile ourselves to Him. That way is Jesus. 
John 14: 6

The sacrifice of His Son is the freely offered gift of Grace from God to us. 
Hebrews 9: 11 - 14

Only His perfect Blood has the power to save us by washing our sins away and cleansing our souls. 
Hebrews 9: 22
Hebrews 10: 4

He came to this sinful world as one of us. He lived as one of us. He was tempted as we are tempted yet did not sin. 
Hebrews 2: 18
Hebrews 4: 15

He lived the perfect life required of us, for us. He obeyed God perfectly for us, so that we only have to remain faithful. 

He was mocked and scorned. He was beaten and bruised by the Jews and the Romans. He was crucified, one of the most painful forms of execution. 
Isaiah 53

All of this was for us. It was the only sacrifice that could save us. He did this freely for you and me. 

The path has been offered for us to salvation. The gift is freely given. We have not earned or merited this gift in any way. In fact, there is nothing we can do to earn or merit this gift. God could have done as we said earlier and just allowed us to die in our sins and burn. He chose to offer us the gift of salvation. Like any freely offered gift, though, we have to accept it. 

If you get a free gift from someone, in order to claim it you have to do something. You have to go pick it up at the post office if they sent it to you in the mail. At the very least you have to open it up. You have to do something in order to enjoy the free gift that was given to you. It’s the same thing with the free gift that God has offered you. You must do something to accept it. 

The entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation has as its underlying theme salvation by the Grace of God being given to those who BELIEVED God AND OBEYED God. From the many examples in Scripture of this in action we can conclude that in order for us to receive God’s freely offered gift of salvation by Grace we have to do something to accept it. 

From the examples of people we can see in the Bible who have been saved, we see that we have to BELIEVE Him. If we have no faith, there is no possible way for us to accept God’s Grace. If we have no faith in Him, it is impossible for us to be saved. 
Hebrews 11: 6
John 8: 24

Like everyone we  read about in the Bible who was ever saved from something by the Grace of God, we must BELIEVE. We must trust in God to mean what He says. We must trust that God will do what He said He would do. To find this trust, we must hear His Word. 
Romans 10: 14 - 17
Ephesians 1: 13 - 14

 However, just like those folks we read about who were saved from something, faith ALONE is not enough. 
James 2: 24

What else is there if faith ALONE won’t bring us into God’s Grace? Like those folks we can read about in the Bible who were saved by God’s Grace from something, we must also OBEY. 
John 3: 36
Hebrews 5: 9

When we believe God, when we trust that He means what He says, then we must DO WHAT HE SAID TO DO. We must OBEY God if we are to be given access to His Grace. God laid out a specific plan for us to accept His Grace. He did His part. To receive the gift, we must do our part. If we believe God, we can see that He told us some things we must Do in order to be saved by His Grace. It’s up to us to seek these things out and to listen to them, if we truly wish to accept His freely offered gift. 
Matthew 7: 7 - 8
Acts 17:11

When we are seeking God’s Path to Redemption, we find that He told us that we must REPENT of our sins. 
Luke 13: 3
Acts 17: 30
Romans 2: 4
II Corinthians 7: 10

Repentance is an ACTION, not a statement. Repentance means we have turned our focus away from the pursuit of our fleshly desires, and begun to focus on the Spiritual things offered to us by God. To repent means to turn from the sinful things we have been doing and change our minds and our actions. 
Acts 3: 19
We can say we have repented of our sins all day long, but if we continue to commit those sins, have we really repented? No we have not. 
Hebrews 10: 26-27

 Without repentance, there is no salvation. 

 

As we continue seeking God’s Path to Salvation, we find that we must CONFESS our belief in Him publicly. We must publicly proclaim with our words and our deeds that we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. 
Matthew 10: 32 - 33
Luke 12: 8 - 9
Romans 10: 8 - 10
Colossians 3: 17

There is no salvation without a confession of your faith in Christ, in your words and in your actions.  

Continuing on the journey to seek God’s Path for our redemption, we find another command. We find the command to be BAPTIZED, that is immersed in water, to have our sins washed away. 
Mark 16: 16
Acts 2: 38
Acts 22: 16

 

How does baptism save us? Does the water wash away our sins, or is it something else? It is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that Peter spoke of in Acts 2: 38. The Holy Spirit washes our souls clean when our faith leads us to obey the command to be baptized. 
Colossians 2: 11 - 14
Titus 3: 4 - 7
I Peter 3: 20 - 21

That is God’s Path for your redemption. God’s way is THE ONLY WAY. There is no other way to accept His freely offered gift of Grace than to Believe Him and Obey Him. Now is the time. We are not promised anything but the present. We don’t know when our time may be up. We don’t know when death will come for us. If you believe, why not take the time now to obey?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest ECBucFan]

Amen!

[NDNation]

AMEN!

 

[Tigers2010]

I needed that today.