Salvation

Now today I would like to talk about a very important issue, Salvation. Now Salvation is simply put the Christian view on how to be forgiven from your sins, so that you can spend eternity in heaven instead of hell. I am writing an essay on this so any thought you can give me would be appreciated. But the typical view is that to become a christian and be saved you must genuinely ask Jesus into your heart and admit that he died for you to save you from death, making you righteous then you will be saved, forever. Now i'm sure many of you christians are nodding your heads, well i believe there is more to this then that. Though that is the first step, accepting Jesus I believe that the sign of salvation is Good works. Now you catholics are nodding but the good works do not, Do Not grant your salvation they are merely a sign of genuine acceptance. They are not the only one and you can never judge purely on this and you should never be judging at all. But when someone has genuinely accepted Jesus then Good Works will be impossible for him to not do. His life Will Be Changed, permanently. It says in Matthew 7:16-17, By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

If you see someone accept Jesus even if it is geniune, then going back and doing the same things they were before and not having or seeing a problem with it, then they were merely caught up in the emotion of it and I believe they won't be saved. A good example of this I heard by a pastor. The pastor said, "Say I were late today, and I finally got here to preach and you said Brother Paul your late what happened," Brother paul said, "Well I was driving on my way here and I swerved to avoid a deer on the highway. I swerved into the next lane and got hit by a 18 wheeler going that way going 90 miles an hour and it flattened my car. You would look at me and say brother paul that's impossible. You can't be hit by something as big as a 18 wheeler and not be changed. And so he replied, well what is bigger a 18 wheeler or God.

You Cannot truely become a christian and not be permantly changed. You won't listen to music like 50 cent and Eminem with out a guilty "conscience," key word being conscience. Now is the music so bad that it cancels your salvation? No! but if you accepted Jesus into your heart and made him Lord of your Life, your will, you sacrificed all your wants and desires before him till he is King of your heart mind and soul. You won't listen to that music and still be a christian.

It says that few will enter the kingdom of God. Now simply using logic all of people who claim to be chrisitans can't be true follower of Christ, because christianity is the largest religion in the world by millions, and simply by knowing that, we know they must be false. Because few isn't half the world or 40% or 30%. We are missing some great detail that makes us christians because it doesn't work logically. If you asked these people what made them christians they would all say that accepting Jesus into their heart and making them Lord of their life. Though some might say more then that, that is the basic answer. That can't be all, we are missing something.

I believe and obviously all of this has been my interpretation and thoughts it's obviously not foolproof. But I believe that the first step is geniune accepting Jesus that is proved through works and other things. And then I believe there is a third step, but I don't know what it is so for now I shall not go into that. Thoughts are appreciated.