Accept, Follow, and Trust Jesus Alone
How do we accept Jesus? Jesus told us,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
Jesus knocks on the door of our hearts and calls us to Himself. If we hear His voice and open the door to Him, He will come into our lives and our hearts. It is by faith, expressed through prayer, that we open our hearts and lives to Jesus and accept Him. After we accept Jesus and receive Him into our hearts, we are to follow His instruction for living as revealed through the Bible. The Bible tells us,
“This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived” (1 John 2:5, 6).
That is the difference between just believing in the existence of Jesus and believing in and accepting Him. Someone who has accepted Jesus will “walk in Him,” “live just as He lived,” and will worship Him with their life.
Those who only believe in Jesus but have not accepted Him have not been given “power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Therefore they do not have salvation from their sins. It is our sins that separate us from God. The consequence of not believing and accepting Jesus, of not truly knowing Jesus, and of Jesus’ not knowing you as one of His disciples is to not go to Heaven; the consequence is to spend eternity separated from God in Hell. This statement may sound harsh and judgmental, but it is exactly what the Bible teaches. If you truly know Jesus, this statement will not frighten you, nor will it make you feel the least bit uneasy. But if you do not know Jesus, then it may be uncomfortable or even frightening to read the following quote from the Catholic Catechism that accurately quotes the Bible:
“Jesus often speaks of ‘Gehenna,’ of ‘the unquenchable fire’ reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he ‘will send his angels, and they will gather...all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,’ and that he will pronounce the condemnation: ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!’ ” (para. 1034).
Please remember, I did not write this book to condemn anyone, but to encourage you to seek Jesus with all of your heart, soul, and mind, because in Jesus we have hope and the promise of salvation. That is why I want to encourage you to think about what you believe, know why you believe it, and consider the eternal consequences of your beliefs.
Some people are very religious and may go to church every Sunday, but they still may not truly know Jesus. The Bible tells us the following about such people:
“I testify with regard to them that they have zeal for God, but it is not discerning. For, in their unawareness of the righteousness that comes from God and their attempt to establish their own [righteousness], they did not submit to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:2, 3).
Some people say that they have never done anything wrong or that they have never sinned or that they are not as bad as someone else. But the Bible tells us that
“...all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
And that
“If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
God is obviously not a liar, and we should definitely not call Him one. Anyone who says that they have not sinned either does not know the truth or does not accept the truth as revealed by God through the Bible. Some may say that they have done only one or two little things wrong. Well, that is enough to be kept from entering into Heaven, because the Bible tells us,
“For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it” (James 2:10).
So even if someone is basically or mostly a “good person,” they are still not good enough to attain salvation and gain entrance into Heaven based on their own righteousness. The Bible tells us that the consequence of our sins is death, but it also gives us hope when it says,
“...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
The death that is spoken of here is a spiritual death, in other words, eternity in Hell. But despite the fact that we are all sinners and deserve death, God still loves us. God loves you! As God’s Word tells us,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16).
God can and will forgive all of our sins if we come to Him with sincere hearts and confess our sins to Him. God offers the gift of eternal life to all who accept Him into their hearts and follow Him. He desires that everyone would be saved and that none would be lost. The Bible tells us that God
“...is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
The Bible also tells us that all who sincerely call out to Him will be saved, for
“...‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:13).
And once we call on Him, if we believe in our hearts and confess our belief to others, we will be saved. As the Bible tells us,
“...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved” (Romans 10:9, 10).
Additionally, we can know that we have eternal life because God has told us through the Apostle John,
“I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13).
You can receive Jesus and have assurance of your salvation right now through prayer. Confess your sins to Him, ask Him for forgiveness of those sins, and acknowledge Him alone as your Lord and Savior. He is our Savior because He saves us from the penalty (Hell) we deserve because of our sins. And He is our Lord because we commit and submit our lives to following Him and His Word out of our love for Him and our thankfulness for saving us. Please know that it is not a special prayer that saves someone, it is Jesus. So just open up your heart to Him and speak directly to Him through prayer.
Then begin or continue to read His Word, the Bible, daily. Each time before you read, pray that God will help you to understand what you are going to read and that He would help you to know Him better. As you continue to read God’s Word, you will begin to know Him better and better each day. If you have tried reading the Bible before but it seemed difficult to understand or seemed like it doesn’t apply to life today, this time try starting in the book of Matthew. Matthew is the first book in the New Testament and tells us about Jesus’ life and His teaching. The entire Bible is important and should be read and studied, but in general, the New Testament speaks more directly about Jesus, Christianity, and our lives today.
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for yourself or to share with family or
friends, simply e-mail me at:
Joe@TeachingsOfTheCatholicChurch.com
and I will be happy to send one to you.
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