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"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
Acts 16:31
If you read only one page on this site, read this one. It is not complicated, and nothing in it is asked of your wallet or your name. It sets out, in order, the four things a person needs to know: that God is there, that something has gone wrong between you and Him, that He loves you nonetheless, and what He has done about it. Take it slowly. There is nothing more important that you will read today.
Everything begins with God, not with us. Before there is any question about sin, or the cross, or how a person is forgiven, there is the plain fact that God exists and that He is not silent.
Now most people, if they are honest, already suspect this. There is a persistent sense — quieted for years at a time, but never quite killed — that we did not simply happen, that the universe is not an accident, and that we will one day answer to Someone. The Bible says that this sense is not wishful thinking. It is testimony, and God Himself put it there.
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." (Psalm 19:1)
Go outside on a clear night and look up. Nobody has to teach a child to be struck by that. Something in us responds to it before any argument is made, and what it responds to is glory — not merely size, but a kind of deliberate magnificence.
The apostle Paul puts the matter in the strongest possible terms:
"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." (Romans 1:19-20)
Read that carefully, because every phrase is doing work.
Manifest in them — this knowledge is not hidden away in a library for scholars. It is placed inside ordinary people.
Clearly seen... by the things that are made — the evidence is the creation itself. Not a special vision, not a mystical experience. The world you already live in.
His eternal power and Godhead — two things creation announces. Power, from the scale of it; and Godhead, from the order of it. A thing that is merely powerful might be a blind force. A thing that is exquisitely ordered — where the eye focuses, where the blood clots at a wound, where a seed knows what to become — is the work of a mind.
So that they are without excuse — and there is the conclusion. Not so that they may be excused for their ignorance. God's verdict is that the evidence is sufficient, and that nobody will be able to say at the end that he was never told.
There is a second witness, and it is closer than the stars. It is your own conscience.
Every human being on earth carries an inner sense of ought and ought not. We may argue endlessly about the details, but nobody actually lives as though right and wrong were merely personal taste. Wrong a man and see how quickly he appeals to a standard. Betray him, cheat him, lie about him — he does not say that is inconvenient for me. He says that is not fair, and he expects you to know what he means.
Where did that come from? A universe of blind matter has no opinions about fairness. But a moral law implies a Lawgiver, and the sense of guilt we all know — the thing that keeps a man awake at three in the morning over a matter no court will ever hear — is the echo of a courtroom that has not yet convened.
Scripture says God has written the work of the law in men's hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. You have been carrying the evidence about with you your whole life.
So why is the world not full of worshippers? Scripture answers plainly, and the answer is uncomfortable:
"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." (Romans 1:21-22)
Notice the sequence, because it is exact. It does not begin with intellectual doubt. It begins with two failures of the heart: they did not glorify Him as God, and they were not thankful. Only afterward comes the darkening of the understanding.
That is the true order of unbelief, and it is worth admitting. Most people who reject God did not arrive there by long study. They arrived by a quiet unwillingness to have Him in the picture — because a God who is really there has claims, and claims are inconvenient. The arguments came later, to furnish a decision already made.
If that describes you, this page is not written to condemn you. It is written because the same God you have kept at arm's length has gone to unimaginable lengths to reach you.
If God is there, and we know it, and we do not live as though we do — then something is wrong, and the Bible has a name for it. The name is sin.
It is an old-fashioned word and it makes people bristle, so let us be exact about what it means. Sin is not merely the short list of serious crimes — murder, theft, cruelty. Sin is any failure to be and to do what God requires: in action, in word, in thought, and in what we leave undone. It is falling short of a standard, missing a mark, going one's own way instead of God's.
Which means a person may break no human law, harm no neighbour, be well thought of by everyone who knows him — and still be, in the exact sense the Bible means, a sinner.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Weigh the standard in that verse, because everything turns on it. Not short of the average. Not short of your neighbour. Short of the glory of God — His own perfection, which is the only measure a holy God can use without ceasing to be holy.
We assess ourselves by comparison. We think of someone worse — and there is always someone worse — and conclude we are doing reasonably well. It is a comforting method and it is entirely useless, because God never proposed it.
Picture a great chasm between two cliffs, and a crowd asked to jump it. Some are athletes and clear forty feet; some are elderly and manage four. The difference between them is real and worth noticing. But the chasm is a mile across, and every one of them falls. That is what come short means. Our moral differences from one another are genuine — some people really are kinder and more honest than others — and they are entirely beside the point.
Someone will say: perfection is impossible, but surely God accepts a sincere effort. Here Scripture says something that stops the argument.
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6)
Not our sins — our righteousnesses. The very deeds we would bring to God as our credentials come out stained when He examines them, because He sees the motive underneath: the pride mixed into the charity, the desire to be seen mixed into the service.
This is not cynicism about human goodness. Real kindness is real, and the world is better for it. But there is a difference between a deed that is genuinely good among men and a deed pure enough to be offered to a holy God as payment for a debt.
"But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." (Isaiah 59:2)
Notice the care of that verse. It begins by clearing God of blame — the same passage says His hand is not shortened and His ear is not heavy. He is neither unable nor unwilling. The problem is a barrier, and we built it.
This explains something many people feel but cannot name: the silence when they pray, the sense of distance from a God they half believe in, the flatness of religious duty. It is not that heaven is empty. It is that something stands between.
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Read both halves, because the verse is built as a contrast and that contrast is the whole message in miniature. On one side a wage — worked for, deserved, paid out in full. On the other a gift — unearned, undeserved, freely given. Every person receives one or the other. Nobody receives both.
And this is not merely about the end of life, though it is about that too:
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)
If the page stopped at the last paragraph, it would be true and it would be unbearable. But the diagnosis is not the end of the story, and the God who told us the truth about our condition had already acted concerning it.
Understand what God was under no obligation to do. He owed us nothing. He had given us existence, a world, a conscience, and abundant testimony to Himself, and we had used all of it to go our own way. A God who had left us to the consequences would have been perfectly just.
He did not.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Take hold of the timing in that verse, because it is the most important thing in it. Not after we improved. Not once we had cleaned ourselves up enough to be worth the trouble. While we were yet sinners — at our worst, in open rebellion, with nothing whatever to recommend us.
This is what makes the Christian message different from every religion of self-improvement. Elsewhere you must become acceptable in order to be loved. Here you are loved first, and the love is what makes you acceptable.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
Four things in that sentence are worth pausing over.
God so loved — the love came first, before any repentance of ours, before any promise, before we had done a single thing.
The world — not a select nation, not the respectable, not those who had earned a hearing. The world, which includes whoever is reading this line.
He gave his only begotten Son — and here the love is measured. Anyone may say he loves; the question is always what it cost him. This cost God the dearest thing He had.
Whosoever believeth — the door is left as wide as language can make it. Not whosoever is worthy. Not whosoever has kept the commandments. Whosoever believes.
The heart of the Christian message is not advice. It is news — a report of something that was done, in history, on our behalf. And the first thing to say about it is who did it.
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." (1 Timothy 3:16)
The One who came was not merely a good man or a great teacher. He was God Himself, taking a real human nature: born of a woman, hungry and tired and grieved as we are, and yet without sin. He had to be truly man, or He could not have died in our place. He had to be truly God, or His death would have been worth no more than any other man's.
The problem, remember, was this. God is just and must deal with sin; God is love and desires to save the sinner. Overlook the offence and He ceases to be righteous — a judge who dismisses real crimes is not merciful but corrupt. Execute the sentence and we are lost.
At the cross, both were satisfied and neither was compromised. The penalty was not waived; it was paid. It fell in full on a willing Substitute who had no sin of His own, so that justice was completely served and mercy completely extended, and the One who paid it was the Judge Himself in the Person of His Son.
And when it was accomplished, He said one word:
"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." (John 19:30)
The word He used was the ordinary commercial term written across a bill when the final payment had been received: paid in full; nothing further is owed.
Consider what that rules out. He did not say it is begun, leaving us to complete it. He did not say I have done my part, leaving a balance for us to settle by good works or religious performance. A finished work cannot be added to.
"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
The resurrection is God's receipt. The cross was the payment; the empty tomb is the proof that the payment was accepted. Had the Lord Jesus Christ remained in the grave, we could never know whether the sacrifice sufficed. His rising is the Father's public declaration that the debt was fully discharged and the Substitute released.
And it means the Christian faith is not about a memory. He is alive now, and He may be spoken to today.
Here is where nearly every sincere person goes wrong, and it is worth facing squarely.
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." (Titus 3:5)
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Religion tells a man to work harder, give more, attend, perform, and hope that the account balances at the end. But consider: if a man in court promises perfect obedience from this day forward, and even keeps it, has he discharged his past offence? He has not. He has only done what was already required of him every day. Future obedience is not a surplus that can be applied backwards.
Notice too the reason Scripture gives for excluding works: lest any man should boast. If salvation could be earned even in part, heaven would contain people with something to be proud of, and the old poison that ruined us would be carried straight into eternity. By making it a gift, God ensures no one there will have anything to boast of but the Saviour.
There is a mercy in this that anxious people miss. If salvation depended on your performance, you could never have peace — you would never know whether you had done enough, and every failure would reopen the question. Because it rests on a finished work outside yourself, assurance becomes possible.
What God asks is not complicated, and it can be done where you are sitting.
Repent. This means to change your mind and turn — to stop excusing what God calls sin, to agree with Him about it, and to turn from it toward Him. It is not a promise to be perfect from now on; you could not keep it. It is the abandoning of your own way.
Believe. Not merely believe that these things are true — a person may agree with every word on this page and remain unsaved. To believe is to rest the whole weight of your soul on the Lord Jesus Christ and on what He did, with nothing held back as a second option.
Faith is not a feeling, and it is not a leap in the dark. It is what you do every time you sit on a chair: you stop holding yourself up and let it take your weight. The chair does the work, not your confidence in it.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:9)
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13)
Notice the word whosoever again. There is no category of person excluded. Not the one who has gone too far, not the one who has come too late, not the one who has already refused a hundred times.
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
You need no priest, no ceremony, no payment, and no delay. You need only to come to God honestly. There is no magic formula, and He looks at the heart rather than the words — but if you want words, these will do:
O God, I know that I am a sinner and that I cannot save myself. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son, that He died on the cross for my sins, and that You raised Him from the dead. I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone to save me — not my church, not my good works, not my own efforts. Thank You for loving me and for giving Your Son for me. Amen.
If you have truly trusted Christ, you are saved — not because you recited a prayer, but because you have received a Person, and He has promised to receive all who come.
Your assurance does not rest on how strongly you felt when you prayed. Feelings rise and fall. It rests on the promise of God, who cannot lie, and on a finished work that will not come undone. Scripture says these things are written that you may know you have eternal life — not hope so, not feel so. Know.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
And if you have come to Him today, do three things. Tell someone — say it out loud to another person. Begin reading the Bible, and start with the Gospel of John. And find a church where this Book is believed and preached plainly, and where the Lord Jesus Christ is honoured.
You have known for a long time that God is there. The heavens have been telling you, and so has your own conscience, and neither has ever quite stopped.
You know as well as anyone that something is wrong between you and Him, and that nothing you have tried has mended it.
And now you know what He has done about it — that He came, and bore it, and finished it, and rose, and that He offers it as a gift to whosoever will.
There is nothing left to arrange, nothing to earn, and nothing to wait for. The only thing that could keep you from Him now is putting the matter off until a more convenient day — and no one has been promised one.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."Acts 16:31
There is nothing left to explain. You know that you have sinned. You know what sin has earned. You know what the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross, and that He rose again the third day. The only question left is whether you will trust Him.
Understand clearly: no prayer saves anybody. Words do not save. Faith in Christ saves. But faith speaks, and a man who has come to the end of himself will want to say so. If what follows is truly the cry of your heart, then say it to God now, out loud if you can, and mean every word:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to Thee just as I am, with nothing in my hands. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Thy holy law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has justly earned. I cannot save myself, and I have nothing to offer Thee.
But I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Thy only begotten Son; that He loved me and gave Himself for me; that He died upon the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, and liveth for evermore.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone to save me — not my works, not my religion, not my baptism, not my good intentions, but Christ alone. Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive my sin. Be my Saviour from this moment and for all eternity.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. Do not wait until you feel ready. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. A little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Speak to your Father every day. You may now come boldly to God, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment, no ceremony, and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church, and be baptized. Not in order to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in what God has said, not in how you feel. Feelings will rise and fall; the promise does not. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). When you sin — and you will — confess it and go on: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Thy throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank Thee for Thy unspeakable gift, and that Thou didst not spare Thine own Son, but deliveredst Him up for us all. We praise Thee for Thy preserved Word, which declareth that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13).
We confess before Thee that we have all sinned and come short of Thy glory, and that not one of us could ever have earned what Thou hast freely given.
We beseech Thee for every soul who has read this page and is yet without Christ. Send forth Thy Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; let them not put it off another day; and bring them to Thy Son before this day is done.
And for every one who has this hour trusted Christ, give assurance, give joy, give a hunger for Thy Word, and set their feet in a good church among Thy people.
We pray all of this to Thee, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.