Believe and you will be saved?

"Coming to Christ," is not as easy as one might think at first.

The first verse that comes to mind when many people talk about salvation is "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." (Acts 16:30-31). 

 Sounds pretty simple and to the point...and thankfully it is.  

But the very first word in that verse is "Believe."  Repeating the sinner's prayer after someone else is not salvation, in and of itself.  You will not escape judgement from the Creator of the world simply by paying lipservice to His majesty. 

Romans 1:16 says that "the Gospel is God's Power for salvation to everyone who believes.  Given first to the Jew, then to the Greek."  How is salvation obtained?  Through the Gospel.  

What is the Gospel?

The Gospel can be summed up in the following description.  "First of all, it is the "Good News."  The good news is about Jesus and what He did for us." (HCSB Study Bible) 

 So, who is Jesus?

 I believe that He is the Son of God; God expressed in human flesh.  The sinless, spotless lamb of God.  So, it would stand to reason that if you truly believe in Jesus, you believe in all that He is, and all He said dwelt in Him. 

 If you are simply reciting a "Sinner's Prayer" without thought to who you are really praying to, then have you truly "believed" on Him? 

 The second part of that description is that the Gospel is also about what Jesus did for us.  

What did Jesus (the Son of God) do for us?  He was put to death by His own and took upon His perfect soul, the sins of every single human who had ever existed or would exist.  And, the story doesn't end there.  

To truly believe in the Gospel, or "good news," you must also believe that Christ was raised from the dead and is able to live through your redeemed life.  So it would seem that taking all of that in and affirming belief in all that Jesus represents would not be an effortless task.  

And, while I do believe that a sinner can feel the voice of God speaking to him and respond in an instant, I do not believe that when that instant is over, he will return to his life unchanged.  The one who truly believes in what Christ has done, and what He can do through the power of His resurrection, will not continue on in sinful mediocrity.  

On the contrary...

II Corinthians 5:17 reads, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." (ESV)

So, believe and you will be saved?

Yes, absolutely.  Believe. Truly believe.  And, yes, you will be saved.