Salvation & Grace
People tell me I need to accept Jesus. What does that actually involve? I do not want to recite a prayer and pretend something happened.
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua is old, the land is settled, and he gathers the tribes to make them state plainly who they are going to serve. He refuses to let them coast along on inherited religion or vague goodwill. The choice is put as a decision made in public, with consequences for how an entire household then lives. Faith in the Bible is regularly a decision spoken out loud, not a mood that settles on you quietly.
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”
John opens his Gospel with a hard sentence: Jesus came to his own people and they did not receive him. Then he adds this one. The verb is simply receiving, the way you take something that is being held out to you, and what follows is a change of status rather than a change of feeling. There is no technique here, and no prescribed wording anywhere in the New Testament.
A path forward
Say it to God in your own words rather than a scripted prayer: that you trust what Jesus did, that you want to follow him, and that you are handing over the running of your life.
Tell one other Christian you have done this. In the New Testament faith is publicly owned rather than kept private, and speaking it makes it real in a way that thinking it does not.
Start a daily habit this week, however small: ten minutes in one of the Gospels. Deciding is a beginning, and beginnings need something to grow into.
Closing verse
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
- Revelation 3:20
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