Salvation...easy As 123

#2 God showed His love:

We read in John 3:16 about how God loved us. How He sent His only begotten to come to earth and die for our sins. In Romans 5:8 we read, But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God commendeth, God showed His love for us, even though we are sinners, and sent His Holy Son to die for us on the cross. To be crucified at Calvary. Christ willingly came to earth, from a perfect Heaven, to a vile and sinful earth to show His love for you and I. He left His wonderful home in Heaven to come here, be mocked, be scourged, be beaten and have blasphemies hurled at Him, manifested in the flesh, to pay for the sins of the world. He went from a holy spiritual body, to that of a human. He humbled Himself from a mighty King to the place of a servant. Showing compassion and love, while telling the world to repent and believe. Knowing from the beginning what was in store, what pain and discomfort, what humiliation was to come, came anyway. Jesus is God, and was God in the flesh, but also fully a man. A man that felt pain as we would feel, felt sorrow as we would and the agony we would. Falsely accused and ridiculed, the Lord could have destroyed those who sought to harm Him, but He knew His mission, His love was more important. Christ was to be the perfect sacrifice offered up to God for our sins, the ultimate and final sacrifice for all mankind. Severely beaten to the brink of death, Jesus was forced to carry His own cross on the way to Calvary. That would be like someone with a gun to your head, getting prepared to shoot, after beating you for hours on end, making you carry your own casket to the site where he would pull the trigger. What would you do? Run, fight it? I would. The Lord could have easily been saved from the situation by calling on Heaven above. But through His love pressed on. Arriving at the site of the crucifiction, stakes driven into His hands and feet, the Lord, lay dying on the cross. The pain must have been beyond belief, the crowd mocking and ridiculing Christ as He was suffering an unimaginable death. In all this, how easy would it be for anger to arise, how easy for wishing harm on them would it be. I certainly know I would be. But Jesus Christ, with His love and compassion instead prayed to God the Father in Luke 23:34 Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. What manner of man is this? This man was all man, but also fully God, fully showing His love for the world.

Which leads us to point number #3 How to receive the love God has showed us:

We have heard and learned about the great love of God for us, and the length Christ went to to show this love. But how do we receive it? What must we do? Well, remember we just talked about works? We know there is no good deed, no special repetitious prayer, no amount of self righteousness that can help us in achieving salvation. What is it that is required of us to get this wonderful gift of salvation and life eternal in Heaven? Faith. That is all. You say that sounds too easy! Just faith and I'm in? Yes, faith is all it takes. There are some out there who try to dress up and make this simple way of salvation something more difficult than it really is. That something so good cannot come so easily, they call it easy believism. Well, they are right, the believing is easy, and biblical. In Acts 16, the Apostle Paul and his companion Silas after being freed from jail by an earthquake from God, came out of the jailalong with the Philipian jailer. Fearing and knowing they were from God, the jailer asked a very good question. Sirs, what must I do to be saved. Acts 16:31 And they said: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Here it is, straight from the mouth of the Apostle Paul, believe. Lets look at more scripture to show this is no fluke. In Romans 10:9 we read: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Believe and confess that God sent His son Jesus Christ to die for your sins, be buried and resurected from the dead by the Father and you will be saved. Following verse 9 we read: For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Believe on the Lord. Call on the Lord to be your Saviour! You might not understand it all, I don't know anyone that truly fully does understand everything about God, but that isnt what is required here. We are just required to believe on the Lord. Put our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. He is the only way to God and Heaven. The Bible says there is no other name under Heaven given to men in which we can be saved. You ask, what if my faith isn't as strong as it probably could be? The Bible makes no mention of how much faith we are to have, but only to have faith. A good Bible scholar, John Ankerberg put it this way. Realize that in one sense, it is not the amount of faith that saves you–it is in whom you put your faith. The question you should ask: “Is the Savior strong enough and dependable enough to save me when I ask? “