Friday, May 15, 2009

The Four Step Program - To Salvation

Four Step Program from: Edward Synder at http://biblicalintegrity.blogspot.com

The prayer of salvation can be stated in many ways, as long as all the requirements are covered.
The most basic, and effective wordage would be as follows:

Lord God, I am a sinner. I repent of my sins, and ask your forgiveness. I believe you died on the cross for my sins because you love me. I now ask you to come into my heart and be Lord of my life.

By saying this prayer to Jesus and meaning it with all your heart, you are committing to four basic and very prominent steps to ensuring your salvation.

Step 1. You are confessing you are a sinner. This is where you should take a few moments to acknowledge your most prevalent iniquity to the Lord. Whoever walks another through this prayer should allow for this moment of meditation between the recipient and His Saviour.

Step 2. You vow to the Lord you will repent, or turn away from, your sin, and ask His forgiveness. All your sin, not just the big ones. God hates all sin. ALL sin; big or little. If you are making a commitment, you go all the way. We do not bargain with God on which sins would be OK to keep. We are promising to not intentionally sin. This why the first thing we should do is find a Bible and learn His commandments; and always know it is His law, now and forever. You are now, also, stating to yourself you are dead to sin.

Step 3. You are letting the Lord know you believe with all your heart that he came to earth as one of us, but, innocent, and in a humble way, and suffered what NO man would ever, just to give you this opportunity to believe in Him and what He stands for, and therefore enabling you to share the Kingdom of Heaven. If we don't believe this, we don't stand a chance, but, that is not saying that is all we have to believe. Otherwise, the prayer of salvation would be quite short. "I believe you died and was raised again". No commitment on our part, other than to believe that? Interesting.

Step 4. You are giving up your will for your life and telling God you now want only His will for you. You are seceding to the fact your way doesn't work, no matter how much you think it does, and seeking His way. If you seek after His Word and truly repent, He will allow the Holy Spirit to guide you through everyday life in a way that will keep you righteous. He will show you how to resist temptation and live in the mainstream and yet be faithful to Him. If we do not follow the Will of the Father, He will say "Depart from me, I never knew you".

After completing this process, you will immediately experience a profound change in yourself and your life, if you were sincere. But, the point here is, the commitment here, on our part, is a package deal.

It is never expressed in God's Word, anywhere, that all we have to do is say that little prayer, and profess we believe it. God knows we are sinners by nature, and He is faithful to forgive us, as we acknowledge our slip up, and repent.

We cannot hide any sin, and He will not ignore any sin, regardless how we rationalize it. Our Lord is more Holy than we can conceive. We are so fortunate that He is. We cannot take advantage of His goodness, however, or He will let us know of His wrath, real quick. If He was not a just God, we would not have a prayer.

Now change the way you live your life so that it is in accordance with God's laws.... Get a Bible and start reading and studying it. Go to the Lord in prayer every day asking for guidance as to how to live.

Gal 2:20, It is no longer I who live, but, Christ who lives in me, and this life I must live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave His life for me.