1 John 5:11-13 – 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Have a hard time believing the above. The following explains that – 1 Corinthians 2:10-16 – 10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
What does it take to become a child of God in spirit and truth? Romans 10:9-10 states – 9 because, 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. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Now this belief is not a mere statement of intellectual assent, but it is a plea of desperation from a heart that acknowledges a lack of ability to save itself. It is a plea from a heart that is dissatisfied with the spiritual state it is in. A heart that finds itself in a dark morass, unable to get out of the situation it is in and unless someone arrives to save it, is forever lost. This heart cries out to Jesus “Save me for I am lost! Save me for I cannot save myself!” This is the plea that is heard, one of utter desperation that brings the saving that all do need.
This cry for help is accompanied by another cry. It is a fear in the soul that understands that it was lost and that it needed salvation, received from God, to prevent the perishing of it. Understanding that, the lost soul acknowledges that should it be saved from the dark morass, how shall it be sure it does not wander into another maybe worse than the first? Or perhaps the same one? Surely a guide is needed. A Lord who will protect and guide to avoid the murky traps of the evil one. For why be saved from the current situation just to be trapped in another situation as treacherous as the first? Why not just perish now to avoid a worse fate? So this soul cries out not only “Save me!” from the situation I am in, but it understands enough to know that it never wants to be lost and in peril again. So, yes it cries out for salvation, but not only that, but also for a future of safety from destruction. So it gives up what it does not have, and could not keep, for what is secure, because it is provided by another who already possesses it. For it has been manifested that the human soul could not, of its own wiles and devices, secure what it most needed, life and that eternal. Therefore, being defenseless, the wise soul seeks a savior and a defender, that it might be saved not only now, but forever. Such is the cry that comes from the heart to save one’s soul and spirit. It is a desperate cry and concrete knowledge that the Savior is Jesus Christ alone and that Jesus Christ alone must be the absolute Lord of the human soul and spirit. Then salvation is received and salvation is eternally secure. Then the peace that transcends understanding does reside within, and cannot be divided from, he who possesses it.
So yes, believe in your heart, know in your mind, and confess to all with your mouth that Jesus, and only Jesus, is Savior and Lord to all, and be saved. Do this and you will be saved. Saved from what? Come on now, you already have that answer.
So again – 1 John 5:13 – 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
To those who call, and live, Jesus as their Lord and Savior – Hebrews 6:18 – so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
IHS 12-1-13