“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 NKJV
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 NKJV
“God revealed to people how they should live, but no one can live up to God’s perfect way. all have sinned: No one can live up to what God created us to be; we all fall short of His glory. We cannot save ourselves because as sinners we can never meet God’s requirements. Our only hope is faith in Jesus Christ.” Earl Radmacher, Nelson Study Bible.
Warren W. Wiersbe wrote: “The good news of salvation through Christ is offered to everyone. All people, everywhere, need to be saved. Jews and Gentiles are alike when it comes to condemnation. God declared all people guilty so that He might offer to all people His free gift of salvation.” (Wiersbe Study Bible).
Truth Three: “All have sinned,” in “12 Crucial Truths of the Christian Faith,” by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, concludes: “The Christian faith puts forth the truth that a relational Creator God exists, He reveals Himself through His reliable Word, and sin has destroyed the God/human relationship. If that were where the human story ended, it would be tragic beyond words. But the story doesn’t end there. Next, we lay out what we believe about the solution to the great human dilemma of sin and death: the truth of the incarnation.”
The McDowells, father Josh and son Sean, say: “We believe the truth that God created humans in His image to relate to Him lovingly, but that relationship was destroyed because of original sin. Sin was passed to the entire human race, and consequently all are born spiritually dead and utterly helpless to gain favor with God.”
The Nelson Study Bible comments on Romans 6:23: “Paul explains that sin results in death, but God gives the gift of eternal life. Most often this verse has been used as a promise of regeneration. The phrase eternal life is used 42 times in the New Testament, and it usually refers to something we receive as a gift at the moment of belief in the gospel.”
God’s ABCs begin: A – “Admit you’ve sinned.” B is “Believe on Christ.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
C is “Confess Christ publicly.” “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:9-10 NKJV
The second “Faith Factor” is “Seek God’s will.”
Growing up in a Bible believing congregation, Grace Memorial, “Tabernacle Hymns” published by Paul Rader included several songs about seeking God‘s will.
Rader wrote the song “Only Believe.”
Blind prolific songwriter Fanny J. Crosby wrote “Saved by Grace”: “Someday the silver cord will break and I no more now shall sing, but O the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King!”
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33 NKJV
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3 9 NKJV
My personal heritage is interdenominational. My Great Grandmother Hampton was a devout Nazarene. She had a brother who was a Pilgrim Holiness evangelist and church planter. My Great Grandmother Jones was a praying Methodist. My Dad‘s family were Presbyterians. My Mother‘s parents came to Christ through Evansville’s Twelfth Avenue General Baptist and were baptized together in the Ohio River.
When I was eight years old, I was born again during an evangelistic local church outreach. At 16, God reached my heart and mind with Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Paul’s Biblical challenge to Timothy is my personal Biblical direction: “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5 NKJV
Have you received the “gift of God, eternal life” and forgiveness? Have you personally made the decision to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?”