• Believes in Jesus
• Accepts Jesus as their person savior
• Prays a ‘sinner’s prayer
• Goes forward or raises their hand
• ‘repents’
• Gets water baptized
• Confesses with their mouth Jesus as Lord

then, what does that ‘saved’ person NEED TO DO beyond ‘getting saved’ (so they can go to Heaven)?

Absolutely nothing!

However, the Bible does not speak about salvation in this way.  The Bible does not talk about salvation as a means to escape Hell and go to Heaven.  The salvation in the Bible is a salvation from sin.  And the sin we need to be saved from the most is the sin that is inside of us.  We all need to be saved from who we are, people who sin.  We are incredibly valuable and worthy of love, but we need to be changed from the inside out.  This is the salvation written about in the Bible, the salvation Jesus came to make possible.

‘Life’ is not in a place (i.e. Heaven).  Life is experienced in a way of living.  Live is experienced when we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and when we love people the way God loves them.  Sins bring the experience of ‘death.’  Love brings the experience of ‘life.’

This is why becoming more and more like Jesus here and now comes closer to defining biblical salvation than where a person resides after they die.  This is how the biblical writers spoke about salvation.  And this kind of salvation motivates people to pursue Jesus, to turn away from sin, to do the things that allow God the opportunity to thoroughly transform them from the inside out!  It motivates them to practice ‘life transformation activities.’  Practicing biblical forgiveness is one of the six life transformation activities.* 

This way of thinking about ‘salvation’ moves real Christians to “…work out their salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12-13  And what is God’s “good pleasure?”   It is not simply to re-locate us to a better place to reside after we die, but to change us, to make us like Jesus.  “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son (Jesus), so that He (Jesus) would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Romans 8:29

If salvation is simply a relocation project accomplished when a person ‘believes’ in Jesus, then there is very little motivation to do anything to ‘work out our salvation.’  But if salvation is from sin, the sin that is inside of us, and if that salvation begins and continues with a faith in Jesus that compels us to want to become like Him, then we will eagerly work to do the things that allow God to transform us into His image. 

Let your desire to be like Jesus compel you to practice His forgiveness.

*The Six Activities of Life Transformation are:

1. Exposure to and the assimilation of truth
2. Healing through the practice of all aspects of biblical forgiveness
3. Deliverance from demonic influences
4. Personal experiences with God
5. Making protective choices
6. Creating nurturing environments

To see more, go to http://www.forgivenessministries.com/pdshop/shop/category.aspx?catid=6.

When They are Sharing Something Important to Them

(How You Would Like Others to Minister to You)

First – LISTEN

• Actively – give feedback to be sure you are hearing them as they want to be heard
• Ask questions – draw out more
• Demonstrate interest in who they are, what they are saying and what they’ve been through
• If you have experienced what they are sharing with you, briefly let them know it (without making your story the focus of the conversation), so that they will feel more connected to you
• Listen without giving solutions
• Listen without giving Bible verses or trite sayings
• Listen for their feelings
• Connect with their thoughts

Second – EMPATHIZE

• Let yourself feel what they are feeling as much as possible – pray for this

*The more healed we are the more we are able to do this.

• Show them that you are feeling some of what they are feeling
• Do not assume that you feel exactly what someone else if feeling if you have never gone through the situation they are describing
• Empathy is not a solution, but it provides comfort, which changes a person’s experience of pain
• Connect with their feelings

Third – PRAY WITH THEM

• Pray for God to reveal Himself to them in this situation
• Pray to discover God together
• Pray to stop trying to be in control of the situation and let God be in control
• Pray to ask God to give directions and resource
• Connect them to God

Fourth – OFFER SOLUTIONS

• Partner with them in discovering and following God’s directions
• Don’t do for them what they need to do for themselves
• Help to make it possible for them to do what they need to do
• Connect them to God’s solutions

It is a terrible thing to be alone.  God did not design us to be alone.  (Genesis 2:18)  Real ministry is about creating loving relationships; connecting with people’s minds (listening), connecting with people’s hearts (empathizing), and connecting them with God.

• “Lord, save me!” and
• “Lord, give me …”

Asking for God’s forgiveness is just normal.  However, we do not need to ask God to forgive us, at least not to forgive us for the penalty of our sins.

 This is because God, completely apart from any involvement from us, paid for all of our sins through the death of Jesus Christ.  It is as if you owed a bank ten million dollars, had no means to pay the debt back, and someone you didn’t know, without your awareness, paid off your debt for you.  And even though you did not know what was going on, the bank would cancel your debt immediately upon receiving the other person’s payment for your debt.

Jesus did that for you.  He paid a debt you owed to God and could not pay yourself.  He paid the debt without you asking Him to do so.  God planned for Jesus to do this from before the foundation of the world.  Jesus volunteered to do it, without ever asking you if you wanted Him to do it.  God has accepted His payment.  God has forgiven you of the penalty of all of your sins–without you even asking for it!

This might be a new thought for you, and perhaps one you find difficult to believe.  Maybe this will help.  No where in the New Testament are Christians instructed to ask God for forgiveness.  In fact, nowhere are non-Christians told to ask God for forgiveness.  (There are only four possible exceptions.  Can you find them?)  However, we were all taught to do so even though the New Testament does not tell us to ask God to forgive us.  Why?  Because He already has!

The good news of the Bible is not that God will forgive us if we believe, or if we ask, or if we repent or if we do anything.  The forgiveness of the penalty of sins is not accomplished by anything we do.  God does it through the execution of Jesus Christ.  The good news of the Bible is that God has already forgiven us through the death of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world.  2 Corinthians 5:18-19 says,

      “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ … namely that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them …”

God has forgiven us for the penalty of our sins, not because we ask, or believe, or anything.  He has forgiven us because He has accepted the death of Jesus Christ as the full and just payment for our sins!  We do not need to ask Him to forgive us, but it would be exceedingly appropriate for us to say thank you for His forgiveness and to live our lives of gratitude to Him.

True forgiveness always leads to love.  This love will be more than words, more than warm feelings.  The love that flows out of authentic forgiveness will take action.  It will try to help the offender in the best possible way, for their good.  Knowing how to do this, how to love your offender appropriately, is built upon truth and reality, not denial and wishful thinking.  You will not only need to remember what they did to you, but discover the reasons why they did it.  This will give you insight and will help you to discover how to best love your offender appropriately.

 Many Christians have been thrown into dismay and fear when they hear these words because they are very aware of the reality that they have not forgiven someone who has deeply hurt them.  In fact, they may be completely against forgiving this person, believing it would be wrong and inappropiate to do so.

 However, the question also arises out of the misleading belief that forgiveness and salvation are the same thing.  Forgiveness is the foundation for salvation.  And forgiving other people is one of the fruits of salvation, but salvation is more than forgiveness.  Salvation is more than forgiveness in much the same way that a marriage is more than the wedding day, and more than how a man treats his wife on any one day.  A marriage is a kind of relationship.  Salvation is a kind of relationship, too.  Salvation is a relationship with God through a trusting, dependent faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

When a man and a woman get married, they do not instantly become a perfect husband or a perfect wife.  They must learn.  They must grow.  And they will fail at times to love each other as they should, as they promised to on their wedding day.  But they are still married.  As in a marriage, we must learn how to grow in our relationship with God.  We learn how to follow Him, how to let Him heal and transform us.  And during that time, which last our entire life, we will find that we fail to love Him as we should.  Does that mean that our relationship with Him is terminated?  No, of course not.

Salvation is built on forgiveness and includes forgiveness, but salvation is more than being forgiven and more than forgiving others.  It is possible to be saved and to fail to forgive someone who has hurt you.  However, in His salvation, God will be moving you towards becoming the kind of person who does forgive others, even those who have hurt you the most.  Be willing to let God do this in your life and you will be on the right track.