1 Chron. 28:9, 2 Chron. 15:2 “...if you seek Him He will let you find Him...”
Two great accomplishments of God…
Accomplishment #1 - God made man out of dirt and breathed him to life - Amazing!
Accomplishment #2 - God took sinful, depraved, wretched man and made him clean, pure, and holy!
Which is the greater accomplishment; which was harder; which took the greatest act of love and sacrifice?
What is love? I don’t think we can really say what it is but I believe we can know what it looks like. I believe this about salvation.
When does eternal life begin?
Are you saved because you repeated some prayer or asked God into your heart? Is that in the Bible? Salvation evidenced: we detest our sin and love the righteousness we once detested.
I will not pronounce you saved because you repeat a prayer no matter how sincere you are. But we can both know we are saved by our desire to serve God – by the evidence that we are spiritually alive – that we are changed. John 3:5-8 “…Spirit gives birth to spirit…”
Salvation is a supernatural work of God; It’s a mysterious event; a happening. So much of what we call salvation is actually the result of salvation – Consider the salvation of Zaccheus. He made no confession of faith but because of the visible change of heart Jesus proclaimed him saved.
I contend salvation is a spiritual matter, thus it is not the words you speak but your desire to speak them, that is the first indicator you are saved. You cry out to God not to be saved but because you are saved and recognize your need for Him.
I think we have some misconceptions about what salvation is. I think many people see salvation as getting “signed up”; getting your name in THE BOOK; Having accomplished a level of discipline God called for; having met the requirements. People will say they are saved because they “prayed the prayer”, “made the commitment”, or in some way made a deal with God, and most likely some well-meaning Christian told them that is all it took.
Someone even asked me the other day if it wasn’t enough to be sincere...no, it’s not. You must be changed, a new man, born of the Spirit.
Romans 8:13 and 1 Peter 3:18 both tell us those living by the flesh must die but those living by the Spirit are made alive. In fact Paul says it is by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the Body. We remain IN the flesh but we do not live BY the flesh
“This is love, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us”
Love applied became grace, and grace applied became salvation.
Salvation IS change. It has to be. In the flesh man cannot be saved.
Salvation requires a change of heart. Who changed their own heart?
Salvation requires a surrender of control over our will.

You cannot gain salvation by sinning less; you cannot lose it by sinning more.
Salvation is HIS work, not ours; losing it would be HIS prerogative, not ours! “I will have mercy on whom I have Mercy.”Romans 9:15
We can have confidence just as Paul did that God will finish what He started in us. Phil. 1:6