Believe It Or Not

"So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer."

(Galatians 3:9)

What actually saves us? The first step to true salvation, is understanding what true salvation is.

In Galatians 3 Paul gives us an accurate explanation of what truly saves. He uses Abraham as his example.

Back in Genesis 15, God informs Abram that He was going to make a great nation out of him. He took Abram outside and said, 

"Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them’ And He said to him, ‘so shall your descendants be."

The next verse is the key,

“Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” 

God “reckoned” him or believed him to be righteous or justified before God. In other words, he was okay with God. God gave him a stamp of approval.

But why does it say that God called him righteous? It says, because he “believed in the LORD.” His belief in what God told him was what saved him. Hebrews 11:1-2 says,

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval”. 

Paul tells us that God saves us the same way.

In Galatians 3:8 it says, 

“The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU." 

God knew that this promise to Abram would be the way that Gentiles and Jews, would be saved. God made a promise to all of us, just as He did to Abram, and like Abram, we are found righteous when we believe.

Wait! That’s too simple, that’s dangerously too simple. What if people think that all they have to do to be saved is…believe? 

Well, true salvation will make you free. Free from the law and if someone teaches anything other than salvation through faith alone, they are not teaching true salvation. But with that said, I guess Calvin said it best,

“Faith alone saves…but saving faith is never alone”. 

This is what James was speaking of when he said, “Faith without works is dead”. Now, isn’t that in conflict with what Paul is talking about here? Not at all, Paul is speaking about the root of salvation and James is speaking about the fruit of salvation. Paul is speaking on how to be saved and James is speaking on the evidence of true salvation.

When a person truly believes that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, realizing that they are a sinner and they repent, turning to God for salvation, then that is the only way to be saved. That person at that time is indwelled with the Holy Spirit and that person’s life will be changed. If there is no evidence of salvation, then there is no salvation. 

We worry so much about whether someone truly accepted Christ, so much so that we try to put restrictions on them accepting Christ in the first place. We sometimes turn it into a works process; you have to do these certain things to be saved. But we need to remember that to truly be saved we need to purely believe, believe the promise that God gave us in His Son Jesus Christ, that He is our only hope and salvation, there is no other way.

I use to love this show called “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” They would show all kinds of bizarre things & most were very hard to believe. At the end of each clip and Jack Palance was the best at this, in his tough, raspy voice, he would look into the camera and say “Believe it or not”. 

God made us a promise, one that seems a little bizarre, one that seems too good to be true. One that is honestly, hard to believe. That He would give His one and only Son to pay the debt for those who continually turn from Him and mock His name. That he would give salvation freely to those He knows will outright reject His more than generous offer. But still He holds out His gift to you and me with these words, “Believe it or not”.

Vern