How do I get saved?

Our trash-life needs to be disposed of. Symbol picture: Green trash bin laying in a water body.

When you ask yourself how you can be saved, it is furthermost important to know what you want to be saved from. I have met some people who are very willing to receive God's blessings and they do not want to receive eternal punishment under any circumstances. But they have no desire to change...

If then no change occurs in their lives (after their supposed "repentance" in the style of a ticked off checklist), they blame the people around them or God for it. This neither brings them forward nor is it sincere. This behaviour rather shows which DNA underlies the fruit of their "conversion". So if you have no interest in change - and no interest in getting interested in it - then this whole gospel probably not important to you. If you think you are "giving" God your " repentance " - or even your "precious life" so that He gives you back salvation in a deal - then you have fallen for a deception. What I want to share with you is the Kingdom of God and His lordship in your body, your soul and your spirit.

God is a holy, dreadful and just God. If that bothers you, forget the story. Have you ever seen a homeowner who was insulted by his guests and endured all kinds of humiliation? Do you believe that God, as the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, will forever allow people to spit in His face with their ignorance? The Creator of heaven and earth has been patient with mankind for a long time. But He has determined a day when judgment will be pronounced on the living and the dead. Why does He judge? Because He is just and sets the rules as Creator. He has written the rules in our conscience and in the Bible. And in the very beginning we were destined to represent God's image. When there was no suffering, no knowledge of evil and no shame. According to His perfection we were to live. But humanity would rather go their own ways in their lives as well as how to enter into the spiritual realm. It is about defining how to live for ourselves instead of letting God teach us. Even the follower of a false religion wants to present himself as so much better than the others, while he chooses a false way to approach the Creator. But God knows everything about us for He knows the secret intentions of our hearts, He cannot be fooled.

This leads us to the next point, because in fact the human heart with its inward life (character, will, ideas, emotions, phantasies, plans) is not sincere. Already at the Fall the whole world saw the seducibility of Eve, Adam's weakness and the selfishness in both of them.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16+17)

And yes, by eating the fruit, humanity died spiritually. The connection to God was destroyed. Man had to come out of the Lord's presence in order not to eat from the tree of life and thus to exist eternally with sin. Since then there has been no man who does good. Not even one. For so often the good deeds are immediately defiled with the secret underlying intentions. In God's unfiltered presence each one of us would melt away since the Fall. In the eyes of God, the heart is depraved since childhood. Everything we naturally do - even good deeds - is like filthy rags in His eyes. Why? Because people anyways constantly disobey the rules:

"Thou shalt not commit adultery" - Zap, again looking after the next lady.

"Thou shalt not kill" - Zap, again slander committed.

"Thou shallt honour your father and your mother" - Again mocking and cursing the parents.

"Thou shallt not steal" - "Oh nonsense, I do not steal. I even duplicate these videos!"

Even if you find one thing abominable that you never would like to do, you will find yourself guilty in another commandment of God. By this you are judging yourself with it. For anyone who once transgressed the Penal Code must also be convicted according to the Penal Code. Not only at the second, third or fourth violation. Exactly the same with God's standards. Therefore, none of us can be justified before God by fulfilling the divine rules. To assist grannies across the street is not enough. For would you really derive a claim to be called a good citizen from some good deeds while you have attracted the full range of prosecution? God will not be impressed by you, He alone is just. He shows this very precisely with the commandments. The purpose of the commandments in the Old Testament isn't to show the way. But the hopelessness of our situation as mankind.

God will judge all men according to their deeds. Well, that's really bad news... For: By your life in deviation from God's laws - which means lawlessness - you increasingly pile up God's wrath day by day. So we bring upon ourselves an eternal punishment. The Old Covenant of God with Israel states: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Now we compare the deeds of mankind with this claim. All their lives they ignore God and reject him. If God, as a just God, pays them back with equal measure, this means an eternal rejection of mankind. For the eternal lifetime of God's existence. In a place that Jesus himself calls Gehenna or the lake of fire.

He who does not know God or who has disobeyed the Gospel will receive eternal punishment from the Lord Jesus. All this will happen in the last days (endtimes): This world history will be more and more overturned. And Jerusalem will be the momentum wheel for it. After 3.5 years of false peace brought by a false Messiah and then 3.5 years of Antichrist's tyranny, Jesus will sweep this guy off the world stage. The Creator of this world comes from heaven and will let His believers, His saints, rise from the dead and will take them into the air. There they will be transformed and receive the same glory as Jesus. Then the Lord comes to earth with them and will kill the Antichrist, the son of perdition, with the breath of His mouth - as well as all the people who disobeyed God. With Jerusalem as the capital, Jesus will reign in peace for 1000 years. In cooperation with His saints He will take care of law and order. After all of this, all fallen (sinful) people will wage war together with the devil against the Son of God. But God will destroy them and afterwards He rises all the dead people who were disconnected from Jesus. This means that everyone who comes to life in this second resurrection will be brought before the Judgement of Jesus and condemned by Him to eternal damnation in the fire and among the worms - in case one is not written down in the Book of Life of the Lamb of God. God's chosen saints, however, will be with Him forever.

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. (Hebrews 9:27-28)

Those who wait for Him with joy, will receive salvation. The evildoers and enemies of God however, will be condemned. We have already seen that every one of us is an evildoer and that you cannot "buy" entrance to heaven by yourself. But if good deeds do not work out, what is the way to please God? God has shown from the beginning of the world that without bloodshed there can be no forgiveness for transgressions. In the first 4000 years animal sacrifices happened. But already in the Old Covenant of God with Israel it was foretold what can become tangible for all people today: Much rather God wants to see a humble heart than Bulls slaughtered (Isaiah 66:1-3). No one is without guilt before God (Romans 3:10-20). Someone can only consider himself lucky when he is released from his guilt (Psalm 32). So it is about a way of pardon that is undeserved. Without the eternal killing of animals.

And now we come to the really exciting part: Ancient prophecies predicted that the Son of God, the creator of the cosmos, should become a man. And a sacrificial lamb: 

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come— In the volume of the book it is written of Me— To do Your will, O God.’ ” Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:4-10).

Jesus laid His human form upon His divinity like a cover. While everyone wants to "go up", someone voluntarily went down. He who is the only one who deserves honour and admiration lowered himself. He lived a perfectly just life and fulfilled the Israelite Law. He preached the Kingdom of God and confirms His royal title with signs and wonders through the Holy Spirit. After about 3 years of public activity He was slaughtered innocently. Not because he failed but because God used the instance that people saw their own power shrinking and consequently wanted to silence Him. None of them had any idea that it would be God's greatest victory. For on the cross Jesus died the death of me and you. We deserved it - for eternity. But God's Son was punished undeservedly for us. God Himself once suffered on the cross for all our sins in His body and was buried afterwards. Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead by the Holy Spirit and thereby proved that all His claims are true - including Him being the Son of God. At once we have the freedom of being forgiven for our sins and to be identified with Jesus' righteousness. For God punishes our sins only once and does not remember them later.

Now it is up to us to trust in Jesus and to obey His gospel which means to already now prepare for God personally taking over the rule of this world. When He comes to take back His property (the ones that trust Jesus and obey Him), the dominion will be extended upon all people. Will you rejoice and reign with Him? Or will you be run over by God and go to eternal damnation as a child of disobedience?

What do you have to do? (Hebrews 6:1+2)

1. Repent from your dead works and regret: Everything you want to do out of yourself to be just before God is illegitimate and useless. Just as the mass murderer Hitler does NOT receive amnesty just because he built motorways. Inasmuch as Jesus was fully on the cross, you also must crucify everything: your ego, your visions of the future, your will and your feelings. The complete indictment of God against you must hang on the cross. This includes your whole being with all the ideas of this society of self-development, crooked understanding of gender roles and one's own sense of justice. This is what Jesus calls repentance, self-denial, hating one's own life (or literally one's soul) (Mark 8:34-37; Luke 14:26-27; John 12:24-33). If you read in the Psalms that sinners should all die (e.g. Psalm 139), you will find here the fulfillment of this prayer: God does not want your life. He has no use for it. He wants to dispose it. You can read below how this works. The law of the Old Testament also hangs on the cross. You admit to yourself and to God that you can never earn Heaven through the sole practice of orders. God frees you from the urge to try. For the promise is to ascend from the slave of sin to the son of God by adoption. 

Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed (John 8:34-36).

2. You are only allowed to trust God and His way to amnesty: Faith in Jesus and His Blood, which achieves the washing away of sins for us. Trust in His death and resurrection as Son of God in order to free you from yourself! Trust that He makes you a completely new, holy creation. You shall be God's property, so that He completely rules all your thoughts, emotions and your life. 

3. You must perform this washing away: ...and by it simultaneously you must be immersed into Jesus and His death - physically and spiritually-ideationally. Your old life which you hate and which God had cruzified will be buried and stays in the grave of Jesus. At the same time God  makes a completely new creation in the water: The blunted heart is replaced by a heart that pleases God. Soft, compassionate, with the knowledge of sin and justice by the measure of God. You will be completely gone! Because you are to "put on" Jesus and His identity in the full immersion into water. By this action you died for the Law of Sin. This is the liberation that you experience and that we all long for. Finally arrived in Christ!

4. Resurrection takes place through the laying on of hands: Just as the Holy Spirit raised Jesus, so you must rise in the Spirit from your burial. The Spirit of God comes into the human body - just as Adam was first formed, and then received God's breath. For only he who is born again out of water AND the Spirit can see the Kingdom of God. Your body is then part of the temple that the holy God has always longed for.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

Then Christ is in you and around you. When God looks at you, he will no longer see the sinful person but His beloved son. It is not your personality that is to be revealed, but the one of Jesus. If you remain in this identity and grow ever stronger in love for this merciful God, then something amazing happens: In this case, your life will automatically bear supernatural fruit: change of your mind, character, and behavior. You will only want to have room for God in your heart and you will want to talk more and more about Him. The Word of God (Jesus and His words) becomes alive in you (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8)! Consequently more people will become aware of Jesus and finally let Him rule in their lives. God will already have fellowship with you in this life. Until He brings us together to Himself:

Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6)

For more information, read the Bible. The best is to start with the New Testament (2. part of the book; it begins with Matthew and ends with the Revelation of Jesus Christ). Here are two videos for further help.

What is the meaning of life and what do you mean with Gospel?

How can I be born again?

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.