We must appreciate that it was Jesus who was sent from heaven by God His father, to bring the Gospel. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. So, he lived among men and was the first to preach the Gospel and having done so, He came also, to give His life in sacrifice, and paid the price of his redemption and atoned for the sins of the world. To be saved means that the Lord Jesus delivers from the curse and corruption of sin every man that believes that He died for his sins. It is because of sin that the curse rests on all mankind and keeps all men in slavery to the devil! Jesus died on the cross, on the third day He rose from the dead triumphantly, to give eternal life to everyone that will believe in Him! King David knew personally the power of grace by which he was forgiven without merit, and wrote: ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His name. Praise the Lord O my soul, and forget not all His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.’ (Psalm 103: 1-5) Sins are terrible things, for the penalty for sinning is death. One cannot ignore it, one must not forget it, for: ‘The soul that sins it shall die’. So, Christ died for sinners to redeem them from death, from sin and from slavery to the devil. David also wrote: ‘Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against Him and in whose spirit is no deceit.’ (Psalm 32: 1-2) So it is not a question of must but of trust! Amazing grace, unmerited favour!

Before Jesus died, during three years He preached the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, He preached it in the temple, in the countryside, in the synagogues of Judea and Galilee, in the homes that He entered, without ever stepping outside His own country. Thousands heard Him dispense faithfully the words that His heavenly Father gave Him to proclaim freely to the people, yet only a few really believed on Him. He gathered around Him twelve men, that He called apostles. His words were sown into their heart, their inner soul, thus after He ascended, the Holy Spirit inspired them to write down and preach what they heard from his lips; thus, we have, what is called the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and all the epistles, as an eternal heritage.

To this day His words are preached all over the world and many still believe in Him and are saved. Glory to God! It is written: ‘Abraham believed God and it was credited to Him as righteousness! Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation! However, to the man who does not work but trusts God, who justifies the wicked, (by grace, without merits) his faith is credited as righteousness. (Romans 4: 1-8) To be declared righteous by God the judge of all men, means that such a man is, in His eyes as if had never committed a sin. A song says: ‘Wash me in the blood of the lamb (Jesus) and I shall be whiter than snow! That is good news, don’t you think? That is faith in the Gospel does to every man that will commit his life to Jesus Christ!

The deep relationship that Jesus established with His disciples was possible because of their faith in what He preached, for he said to His Father: ‘I have revealed your name (meaning – Father! God is only Father to those who are born again of the Holy Spirit) to those you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I have given them the words you have given me and they have accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they have believed that YOU SENT ME! I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.’ (John 17) Once a person believes in and follows Jesus it receives eternal life and will never lose it. If he sins, for every Christian is still human and he will sin, and confesses his sin he must believe that: ‘the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from all sin.’ (1 John 1: 7) God does not keep a record of confessed sins!