Salvation is Knowing Christ
My name is Jared Spangenberg and this is my story
Being religious never got anyone to heaven. Upon careful reading of the Bible, I have found that being a member of any church (Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, etc.) has never gotten anyone to heaven. Neither has baptism, being a good person, tithing, or even a prayer. Yes, even a prayer. I have tried the “easy believe” way of salvation, so prevalent in our day, which says that if you want to go to heaven, then just repeat the simple salvation prayer after the preacher, and I found that it doesn’t work. Someone who says a prayer to be born-again, and has no change in their life as a result, is still condemned to hell in God’s eyes. According to the Bible, salvation is more than just a prayer, It is a turning from sin, to a lifelong commitment to Christ, no matter what it costs you. In Mark 1:15 Jesus says, Repent ye and believe the gospel. I would now like to share with you briefly how God has found me and rescued me from my sin.
Because I lived in a Baptist home, and my parents said that I “asked Jesus into my heart” when I was six, I thought I was right with God and on my way to heaven. Several years ago, I realized that I did not remember this “prayer”, and saying words without meaning them is useless. Also, I had no victory over sin in my life. There were certain sins that I could not say no to. If I was really a Christian, how could I commit such things. In 1996, at the age of 15, I realized that I did not know God in a real way, I was on my way to hell. But this knowledge that I was on my way to hell was not the sole reason why I wanted to be born-again. The thing that bothered me the most was that I was wicked. Everything that I am and that I did was contrary to God. I had broken the greatest commandment in the entire Bible, and on a regular basis. The greatest commandment is found in Matthew 22:36-38 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.”
For the next two years, every sermon that I heard made me miserable. I heard the Gospel (or “The Good News”) preached many times. I heard about how God (Christ) came to earth to live as a man, yet without sinning once. I heard about how he allowed men to kill Him and how His blood was shed as the payment for the sins of any man who would accept Him as Lord of their life. Although I heard this preached, and read it for myself in the Bible many times, I still could not comprehend the fact that all I had to do was take God at His promise that He would receive whoever would repent of their sins and turn to Christ. I felt like the famous preacher, Charles Spurgeon, who said, “Oh, the many times that I have wished the preacher would tell me something to do to be saved! Gladly would I have done it. But the simplest of all matters-believing in Christ crucified, doing nothing, but trusting to what He has done, I could not get hold of it”.
I knew in my head that I could not work for salvation, but my heart showed something different. I thought that I needed more faith and repentance of sin before God would accept me. But this, as I realized later, was a works salvation. It was something that I thought I needed to do to be saved. God says in Romans 2:4 that it is the goodness of God that gives people repentance.
I also thought that I had to be a good person before God would save me. But the Bible says in Mark 2:17 “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. Another thing was that I thought I had to say the “right words” when I asked Him to save me. But God doesn’t hear the words as much as He hears the heart. The Bible says, “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart”. I prayed, so many times, concentrating on saying the “right words” instead of concentrating on God, and His work of redemption.
For two years, from the summer of 96’ to the summer of 98’, I was miserable and wanting to know how I could get God’s favor and get rid of my sin. During this time, I looked to myself to gain acceptance from God. I was constantly trying to “work up enough” repentance of sin and faith toward God, but I couldn’t do it. I talked to many godly men, hoping that one of them would give me the missing element that I was looking for. I saw many people in our church become born again, but could not understand why I could not. I went to sleep that night trying to understand why I could not obtain salvation
In August of 98’ I went to a summer youth camp to hear preaching for five days straight. Although I heard the Bible preached every day Istill could not understand salvation completely. On the morning of the last day at camp, I decided to go out alone and think about why I did not know God. I paced back and forth on a trail in the woods for about three hours, trying to comprehend how my faith and my turning from sin was not good enough to save me. But to no avail, I just could not understand.
Finally, at about 10:15, I went back to my cabin. No one was there, so I started to read my Bible again. Several minutes later, a man named Ronnie came in and told me something I already knew, but needed to hear again. He said, “God is just waiting for you to give up your own efforts, and trust Him”. He then left, and I thought about those words. I thought about the story in the Old Testament in Numbers 21 where God sent poisonous serpents upon the children of Israel because of their sin. I thought about how they only had to look at the serpent of brass on the pole to be healed. They realized that it was their own fault that the snakes were there and turned to God’s only way of healing them. They had to give up on their own thinking of how a man was healed from a fatal snake bite and trust God enough to look to the snake on the pole. But I still couldn’t understand.
I knelt down beside my bunk and said, “God, I can’t get saved because I can’t trust you enough, and I can’t repent enough, and when I pray, I can’t say the right words”. Just then God put into my mind these words, “Your right, Jared, you can’t repent perfectly, or have perfect faith, or say the right words,. It is not you who saves, It is I”. I then admitted to God that I could not save myself, and I accepted his payment on the cross as my only hope of eternal life. The date was August 21, 1998, 10:35 AM.
I finally understood Ephesians 2:8-9-“For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, Not of works, lest any man should boast”-that salvation was by God’s grace alone. I was reminded of Isaiah 45:22, where what I had been looking for, for two years, was summed up in three words, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved”. All I had to do was take my eyes off of my goodness and look to Christ. Philippians 3:9 says, “And be found in Him (Christ), not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ”. I now know that I am saved. When doubts come about whether I had a true salvation experience or not, I remember that I did not have perfect repentance of sin and perfect faith in God, but that doesn’t matter, because I didn’t save myself, God saved me.
Salvation is not a prayer, baptism, being a good person, an experience, etc. But it is a person, salvation is God. I don’t like to think of it as “I got saved” but as “I got Christ”. And I could have gotten Christ sooner but I was looking for the wrong thing for such a long time. I was seeking “salvation”(an experience) instead of seeking Christ. I was looking for something I could do instead of trusting God. In Is. 45:22, God says “Look unto Me, and be ye saved”. I lived as though it said “look to your own goodness, and be ye saved”. I encourage you today, if you have any interest in knowing God, and knowing that your sins are forgiven, that you sit down with an open Bible.
Cast aside your thoughts about how a man is made accepted of God, and see what God has to say. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us”. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ”-Galations 2:16. “Behold, God is my salvation”-Isaiah 12:2