Have you ever thought about what it means to be saved?

Or better yet, how do you know that you have become a child of God?

You may often hear the saying of “Just believe!” but is this really it? What does it mean to be saved and to put your faith in Jesus?

For this, let’s break it down a little further and ask some tough questions.

Question 1: Is believing in God’s existence enough?

James, the brother of Jesus, helps us with this answer. “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder!” (James 2:19)

Believing that there is one God and that God is real does not save you. Even the demons believe this because they know of God and His existence.

There are many people who claim to believe in God but have different ideas of who God is and what He is. Their commonality with a Christian end at the belief that God is real.

Many of us, through deeper conversations, realize this about certain people who we come in contact with. There is a lack of Biblical understanding of God because they wish to “experience” or find their own way to their idea of God. You may get hundreds of variations of different views of God through conversations with other people.

So we can safely say that believing that God exists and that He is One is a start, but it’s not enough.

Question 2: What about our belief in who Jesus is?

For this, let’s go and read the story of the man with an unclean demon.

And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” (Luke 4:33-36)

The unclean demon who possessed the man knew that Jesus was the Holy One of God. The demon knew the authority and honor that Jesus possessed and was in fear of Him. Yet, this demon was not saved, but instead had an intense hatred for Jesus.

In our daily lives, we can also experience this with those who we come in contact with. We may get many variations and views of Jesus in daily interactions with others.

For example, Mormons and Muslims would both believe in Jesus as an important prophet and spiritual figure, but do not equate Jesus as God incarnate. Others would claim to believe in Jesus’ divinity, but come up with non-Biblical characteristics of Jesus due to having no or limited knowledge of the Bible.

So, just knowing of who Jesus is or even in His power and authority as God incarnate does not grant salvation.

If it was simply a belief in who God is and that Jesus came from God, then we would have an all-inclusive tolerance where several religions and thousands of personal ideas of Jesus would provide us a multitude of paths to heaven. The world would consider this idea as “loving,” because it means that we aren’t being exclusive with saying that only Christianity holds the Truth.

Yet, deep inside, we all know that there has to be something more—something deeper than this surface level belief. There has to be a heart change, a heart transformation involved.

Question 3: What makes Christianity different and what does it mean to be saved?

When we come to the conclusion that God is One and He is real, and that Jesus is God incarnate, we then have to look at what He says about Himself and about salvation.

Given that we are sinners who fall short (Romans 3:23), there is an additional step we have to take. It requires us to trust in Jesus and to obey Him for our salvation.

This means we have to repent, or to turn away, from our previous lives and previous way of living. That is, we should understand the costs of following Jesus and that this will require us to put Him above all else, even our very own families.

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-33 ESV)

We have to count the costs to follow Jesus. And if this cost is worth it, that our faith in God and what He did through Jesus’ death and resurrection is greater than life itself, we are to repent and turn to Him.

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19).

Repentance requires that we put our faith in Jesus for our salvation. But if we put our faith in Jesus, it requires us to trust in His lordship over our lives.

Romans 10:9 says that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul continues to say that it is with your heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved (v. 10).

We have to make Jesus our Lord and to repent and turn to Him. This is what constitutes a true heart change.

Making someone a lord is to surrender your own will and to serve him in obedience. It requires humility and vulnerability.

It says that anything we have done or will do cannot provide us salvation or grant us entrance to heaven.

This is something no demon can do, but it is something that God can do in and through us with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit changes our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

The Final Question of Salvation

So the final question is this: Have you truly counted the costs, repented from your sin, and made Jesus Lord of your life by accepting His atonement for your sins?

Do you confess that Jesus came to earth as God incarnate, that He lived a perfect life, and that He died a death that we should have died, and rose from the dead, conquering sin once and for all?