SAVED AND KEPT BY THE LORD

Two young people, a male and a female around 20 years old, handed me what appeared be a religious tract, while I was sitting on a street-bench in NYC, a city where sin is widespread. 

The tract was about being saved from sin by Jesus Christ. This interested me in talking to the youths about Jesus. We talked about being saved and kept by Jesus until he welcomes us to live with God in heaven.

BEING SAVED 

Both of the young people said they were recently saved by believing in Jesus Christ. The young lady also said she had been raised by parents who believed in Christ; but only became interested in him when she recently heard the gospel. The tract they shared about the gospel read: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness. And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

I listened to them enthusiastically witnessing about Jesus, and I wanted to encourage them to continue to spread the gospel. I shared with them that I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord when I was 10 years old. This was when I my grandmother took me to church and I heard a sermon on being “born again” of the Spirit by believing in Jesus Christ…“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:1-16)

 BEING KEPT

I also shared with them how God had kept me after I went astray from him. I went astray from God in my early 20’s, like the “Prodigal Son” spoken about in the Bible (Luke 15). Although the Prodigal Son apparently was raised in a home where he was taught about God, the son acquired a longing for the things of the world. 

Evidently, he was not fully aware that “the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world” (1 John 2:16).

After he Prodigal Son had spent his time and money living an ungodly lifestyle, he learned that the things of the world can not satisfy the soul. For the soul was made for a fulfilling relationship with God (1 John 2:16; Colossians 1:16). The wayward young man came to his senses. And he said,  I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son… But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.” The Father joyfully welcomed his son home.

Like the Prodigal Son, I leaned that it is not God will that we sin; “but if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One,” who died to atone for the sins of whoever believes (1 John 2:1; John 3:16). If we repent and “confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1John 1-9; Romans 3:23). 

After truly believing, the Lord will give those with an obedient heart the power of the Holy Spirit to obey him, to glorify him and to reach others for him (John 14:15-17; Acts 1:8). God wants all believers to know he is able to “save” and “present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:24).