WHAT MUST WE DO?

Cole Feix, pastor and author wrote:

“In Acts 16, Paul and Silas are jailed for preaching the gospel in Philippi. After an earthquake shakes the doors off their hinges, the jailor, in a panic, moves to take his own life. Paul cries out that he and the other prisoners are all in place. As the jailor comes in to observe the prisoners, he falls down and asks, “What must I do to be saved?”

This, indeed, is the question. We have all faced it. What should we do to be saved? How do we, separated by two thousand years from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, have anything to do with him? It’s obvious in this context that the admission of his historical reality is not enough. Paul answers, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). The jailor must do more than assent to Christ; he must surrender to him and put the weight of his trust on him. He must love him and find in him the solution to his sinful plight. As John writes, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:15-16). Essentially, to know him is to love him. Better yet, to trust in him is to love him.

To return to the opening question, to believe in Jesus Christ is to come to know, love, trust in, and surrender to him. This is why repentance and belief are two sides to the same coin. Believing in him requires something of us. Believing is the wholehearted embrace of the message and mission of Christ that begins with a decision to trust him and takes a lifetime of relationship to unpack.”

“This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” Jesus