Salvation Steps
2nd October, 2021
By: Bro. Peter Ogbeta

‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.’
Ephesians 2 vs 8

What is Salvation?
Salvation is the freedom from sins and its consequences as a result of faith in Christ, Jesus.

In explaining salvation, the story of the children of Israel while in Egypt comes to mind. We all know they were treated as slaves who would work forcefully under unthinkable tough conditions and their new born male children thrown to River Nile. In terms of economic, political and military power, the children of Israel could not gain freedom or escape from Pharaoh or the Egyptians. They had no option besides living as their slave masters wanted. Just as these people in the yesteryears, many of us are under the yoke of sin and as such in danger of losing out on God’s kingdom. Surprisingly, God has another ‘end’ for us irrespective of our current condition & shortcomings. The end is for us to be SAVED, this is SALVATION.

We may now ask, what I must do to be saved or experience salvation?
I’ll like to state that while we may have several outlines on steps to salvation, we must understand that as individuals, one may be saved in no hierarchical or purely defined manner by God. This is one of the reasons he is God Almighty.

Steps to salvation may include:
1. Acknowledgment & confession of sins or wrong-doing
The book of Psalms 51 is a psalm of David following the sin of adultery with Bathsheba. Across the verses, we do see King David showing all the signs of repentance. Verse 3 says, ‘for I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me’. In 1 John 1:9, we are told that, ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’. John the Baptist who was credited with the message of repentance baptized people in River Jordan after the confession of their sins in John 3 vs 6. Hymn 18 in Celestial Church of Christ Hymn Book is dedicated to the confession of our sins committed in worship, behaviour, speech and daily engagement with others.

2. Turning away from sin
The bible makes us to understand that we must produce fruits keeping with repentance. A good example of this would be the story of the people of Nineveh. Amittai’s son was told that the wickedness of Nineveh had come up before God & looking at the trend in the bible, cities or nations with high level of wickedness & evil beyond measure often received such recognition by God. This includes Sodom, Gomorrah, etc. However, after receiving the message of God from Jonah, the people of Nineveh believed God, fasted, became sober & turned from their evil & violent ways. When God saw their works and how they had truly changed, he decided not to give them over to destruction.

3. Believing in God and accepting Jesus into every area of our lives
As part of the steps to salvation, we must accept Jesus as our saviour, submit to him totally and believe in his Father, God in heaven. This means we believe God has forgiven us and will fulfill his promise to baptize us with His Holy Spirit. In the book of Acts chapter 16 vs 29 – 31, we saw how the Jailer was saved. On believing God, he opened his heart to hear further and was baptized in order to begin his journey of faith. We must rise to a new man in Christ, Jesus. Our declarations over our lives stems from our heart and when we positively speak words from within, we have broken into a conscious state, fully aware of God, His power, glory and majesty, ready to receive all his promises as children of God.

In conclusion, salvation is ‘not by our works’. We can take our minds back to the book of Deuteronomy 9:4 – 6 & also Psalms 44:3. The verses above ensures that we do not boast or believe our redemption is firstly as a result of how good we are in keeping to instructions from God or how we have been upright in the believer’s circle. This also means that we approach the task of winning souls to Christ by being understanding of new converts and receiving them as those whose faith would need to be built to maturity. Christ has demonstrated his love towards us by shedding his blood while we were sinners. This is grace. Let us look for him in our lives and abide with him now and always. Jesus is waiting for all of us. Accept him.

I pray that we shall all experience salvation and abide in his love now & always in Jesus name. Amen.