Belief in God Is Not Enough

I Corinthians 15:2: "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain."

Salvation is more than mere assent to the reality of God, or the awareness of Jesus' death for our sins, or even a genuine feeling of remorse for our sins. To receive the gift of God's forgiveness and adoption into His eternal kingdom necessitates a response of surrender from us.

In effect, our response to Christ is to yield ourselves fully to Him as our Master, Savior, and Lord. This is seeing ourselves as a humble servant of the Living Lord, and desiring to follow Him in obedience by abiding by His commands as recorded in Scripture. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we hold firmly to the truth of the gospel and we consider our Lord so worthy of our allegiance, that we have an "I'm all in" mentality for the will of God. There is no room for duplicity here. We surrender to the yoke of Christ, which is not laborious . . . rather it is a delight (Matthew 11:30).

Therefore, this offering by Christ of redemption requires a response from us. Are we willing to relinquish our presumed right for our own glory and happiness? Will we renounce the exaltation of our wills to the will of God? Can we see ourselves as servants of the One True Lord? Truly, we were created for such purposes of surrender.

Jesus declares that the man who does not fall away in view of His Lordship will be blessed. Today, each of us is faced with a decision. Either we can capitulate ourselves to His rightful reign in our lives, or we can continue to perpetuate our selfish quest for lordship. Only the one who will profess and live a life yielded to the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:9). God's offering has been afforded to us through the death and resurrection of His Son. He now extends His grace to each of us who would receive it.