If someone were to ask you how to be saved, what would you tell them? As followers of Christ, we need to be prepared to share the message of the Gospel. Or maybe you have landed here and have never learned how and why we need to be saved. The following seven principles are the very basics of the plan of salvation: God loves the whole world and wants to have a personal relationship with each person.

But all people are eternally separated from God because of sin and can do nothing to restore their relationship with God.  Although God loves everyone, He is a just and Holy God. Because of sin, all are condemned to eternal separation from God in hell.

But God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to pay the price for sin by dying on the cross in our place. He arose from the dead and ascended to heaven. He is the only way to God. The person who puts his faith in Christ receives forgiveness of sin and is reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. To follow Christ means to turn away from sin in repentance and to surrender one’s life to Him as Lord and Savior. When someone receives Christ, the Spirit of God comes to live in that person. And then he/she is able to live a life pleasing to God.

Those seven principles form the very basics of the skeleton of the Gospel. God loves us, but we are separated from God because of our sin. God is perfect and just, and sin is contrary to his nature, so we are condemned to be separated from him eternally. But God sent Jesus, his only son, to the world to die for us and take the penalty of our sin upon himself so we could be seen as holy in the eyes of God. Whoever puts his faith in Jesus Christ receives the forgiveness of God and is reconciled to him through the blood of Christ. To follow Christ means to turn away from sin in repentance and to surrender one’s life to Him as the Lord and Savior of their life. When someone receives Christ, the Spirit of God comes to live in that person, and they are now able to live a life that is pleasing to God.  

Use this guideline in explaining the Gospel. The list below are several scriptures that support the principles:

As it is written; There is no one righteous, not even one.” -Romans 3:10  

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. -Romans 3:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23 

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. -John 3:17-18

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. -Romans 5:1

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. -Titus 3:4-5a

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -John 1:12

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. -1 Peter 3:15

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galations 2:20

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. -James 2:10

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. -Isaiah 53:6

We love because he first loved us. -John 4:19

12/04/16