God, in His Word, says, Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (2 Corinthians 13:5). The meaning is clear: God wants us to examine ourselves regarding salvation. This is because it is possible to believe that you are saved, yet actually be a reprobate (a false professor). In spite of how one may feel in their heart, this passage clearly states that only true believers have Jesus Christ (the Spirit of God) living within them.
Given this clear mandate from Scripture, we are going to examine ourselves whether we be in the true faith of Jesus Christ. We will begin by examining the belief of salvation, then we will consider the experience of salvation, and finally we will inspect the fruit of salvation.
I. The Belief of Salvation: The question here is not whether or not you factually know and understand the main points of the Christian faith, but what faith it was that you believed at the time of salvation. If you travel back in your mind to the time that you were first saved, can you recall what it was that you believed on that day? Do you remember what was going through your mind at that moment? When you became a child of God, what did your faith rest upon? A woman that I spoke with, as I was explaining my own testimony of salvation and how I was not saved until I came to the true faith of Jesus Christ, insisted that I had been saved prior to understanding the true faith, but that God later gave me a greater revelation of it. She seemed to believe (quite erroneously) that you can begin your Christian life without fully understanding the gospel and then later gain that understanding as a means of greater spiritual fulfilment. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Consider what the Bible says regarding the proper order of events in salvation: In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13). This verse states that those who were saved FIRST heard the gospel and THEN they trusted in Christ as their Savior (remember: trusting in Christ means trusting that Jesus paid for your sins when He died on the cross). It is simply not possible to first get “saved” by trusting in some false or twisted teaching about Jesus and then later hear the true gospel. The fact is, without the proper faith in the true gospel, there is no salvation, no matter what your feelings might be to the contrary.
A. The Common Errors: These are the things that many people first trusted in at the time of “salvation,” In these situations, the person has either left Christ’s sacrifice completely out of the picture until much later or mentally assented to the fact that Jesus died for them on the cross as a peripheral or side issue to salvation (i.e., it was not the main focus in salvation and was not what they were trusting in to actually save them). Before I begin, I want to tell you that before I got saved myself, I trusted in many of these false means of salvation, at one time or another. I am not picking on anyone or being mean to anyone who believes in any of these false means of salvation. I tell you these things out of love, that you might hear the truth and be saved.
1. I was Baptized as an Infant : You were taught that when you were baptized as an infant you became a member of the Church and of Christ’s Body. Later you were confirmed (you were given the principles of the faith to put your trust in), but the work of salvation (you were told) had already been done through your baptism. You were also told that Jesus paid for your sins when He died on the cross. You might have also had the spiritual experience of asking Jesus into your heart, of calling upon Him for salvation, or of trusting in Him as your personal Savior, but you never considered yourself a lost sinner at that time, alienated from the life of God, and condemned. You did not see yourself as coming to God for the first time with the weight of guilt and sin upon your soul, understanding that prior to this you had not been His child, but were a rebellious sinner who was still of the devil. Therefore, trusting in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was really only, at best, a secondary “faith” for you. Your main faith rested in your baptism and the fact that you became a child of God at that time. The Bible, however, does not place baptism before faith. It is not possible to become a child of God as an infant who has no understanding of his sin before God, his guilt and condemnation as a result of his sin, or the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice to save him. According to the Bible, salvation is by grace THROUGH faith (Ephesians 2:9). Without faith, you have nothing, no matter how much water was sprinkled on you, how many prayers were prayed, how earnest the priest, your parents and the congregation was to raise you in the church. Without faith, you were a lost sinner and when you tried to add the true faith to your false faith, you merely joined truth to a lie, which resulted in a profession that was twice as deceivingly convincing to you, but also twice as false. A devout Lutheran who I spoke with was in this very condition. I asked her when she got saved, and she said that when she was a young woman a revival came to her Lutheran Church. During this revival there were a couple of women who got saved and gave their testimony before the church. When she saw that and heard what the women said, she decided to go to her priest to ask him to please give her what those women had. In response to her request, the priest said, what you have had all your life (since your baptism, of course) is better than anything that those women just got. She also told me that she believed that she would go to heaven because Jesus died for her on the cross. So she had somehow joined faith in her infant baptism to faith in Jesus’ sacrifice without ever truly coming to repentance as a lost sinner in need of salvation. I handed the woman a tract, insisting that she had yet to be saved. She took the tract, but smiled and wished me on my way, still trusting that she had always been a Christian.
Many others in the Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal Churches have had similar experiences. They have all been baptized as infants and always considered themselves members of the church, but later in life attended Evangelistic meetings or Bible studies and had the faith explained to them about Jesus and His work on the cross and the need for personal salvation, but none of them repented of the false faith that they had prior to that. None of them renounced their infant baptism or their false church. They just added faith in Christ to what they already had in much the same way a Hindu adds to his faith another god to pray to. What they don’t realize is that they have not been saved at all, at any time. They have just compounded the problem by adding another layer of deception to their false faith. Now, when they hear the true gospel and they are told that salvation is based on faith in the blood of Christ, they say, well, I already have that, and I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. The problem is, now they’re just as lost, but twice as confident that they are saved. Jesus preached that men should repent (not just of individual sins, but of their rebellious and deplorable state as lost sinners). If you believe that you’ve been saved and this story sounds familiar to you, please understand: There is no salvation without repentance as a lost person. You must first recognize that you are apart from God, alienated from Him, that you have never been His child, that you are a rebel against Him, before you can be saved. Jesus said, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish (Luke 13:5). Please believe Him. Please renounce your false church and your false faith and come to cross as a lost sinner, trusting only in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for salvation.
2. I Asked Jesus Into My Heart: You were taught that when you pray this prayer and ask Jesus to come into your heart, Jesus will save you. Perhaps you heard this message in Sunday School, a Christian summer camp, or Vacation Bible School as a child or you might have heard it during an Evangelistic camp meeting, like a Billy Graham Crusade. It is possible that you even heard it in your own local church as an invitation to salvation or on Christian TV or radio. At the time that you asked Jesus into your heart, you most likely knew that Jesus had died on the cross to pay for your sins. You were probably told that you were a sinner in need of salvation and that only Jesus could save you. There is some variety in terms of the exact message you might have been given, but the general message is always the same: You are a sinner. God loves you very much (John 3:16). Jesus died on the cross to save you. If you ask Jesus into you heart, Jesus will come into your heart, and you will be saved.
After finally getting saved myself, I talked to my sister in law about her salvation experience, and she said that the pastors of her Baptist Church had questioned her about salvation. It seemed they thought that she was trusting in herself somehow and her own works. At first she said that she was offended that they questioned her faith but on the way home in the car she prayed to the Lord for salvation. It was a momentous event for her and one that she looks back to as the time that she actually got saved. She told me, “and I knew that I was saved. I have never had to ask Jesus into my heart again.” The fact is, the invitation to ask Jesus into your heart is heard in virtually every denomination within Christendom and most people in western society have heard it at some time in their lives. When you look back to the time that you got saved, the time that you feel confident was the time that you became a Christian, do you look back to an experience like the one described here? Did you ask Jesus to come into your heart? Did you believe that when you prayed that prayer you would be saved?
Please understand, the issue here is not about whether you followed the right steps to salvation. I am not saying, well you said the wrong words, so you’re not saved. It is not a matter of which words you used, it is an issue of saving faith. It’s about what you trusted in to save you and where you placed your faith at the time of salvation. The truth of the matter is that every church in Christendom (with the exception of one or two fringe cults) teaches that Jesus died on the cross to save sinners. Therefore, the person who prayed the sinners prayer and asked Jesus into his heart also, oftentimes, has a strong sense of security in the cross. They hear about Jesus dying to save sinners at church, read about it in their Bibles, and in Christian literature. In this way, they are much like the person who has been baptized as an infant and has added faith in Christ’s sacrifice to that. It is a fact that the Roman Catholic Church teaches both faith in the sacraments of the Church and faith in Jesus sacrifice on the cross. The Stations of the Cross is considered to be one the of the most prominent Roman Catholic religious practices, where Jesus death on the cross is at the center of their spiritual devotion, and each individual scene is pondered deeply within the Catholic’s heart. When a Roman Catholic practices the Stations of the Cross, he is deeply affected by Jesus work on the cross, but the trouble is, for the Catholic it is not Jesus death on the cross that is the focal point of salvation. The Catholic, therefore, deeply appreciates Jesus’ work on the cross in a true religious sense, but has never trusted in it alone for salvation. The same is true for you, if you have trusted that you got saved by asking Jesus into your heart. The cross might be important to you, but it was not actually the means of salvation that you trusted in at the time of salvation. So, you see, it matters very little whether you derive religious comfort and security from Jesus’ death on the cross or whether you think upon it and consider it deeply within your heart during your quiet time before God in prayer, personal Bible reading, or in a church service. The question is not whether the cross is important to you because, you see, it is important even to Roman Catholics, who believe in salvation by personal works, the mediation of Mary, and the collective Roman Catholic sacraments. Satan is more clever than to offer a means of salvation, which entirely ignores the cross of Calvary. The deception here is that Satan would have you see the cross as very spiritually significant, but not the actual, the only, means of salvation. This is a great deception because God’s only means of salvation is Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as the payment for our sins, and if you did not put your faith in it for salvation, then you are not saved.
If you have trusted that Jesus saved you when you asked Him to come into their heart, you are no different from the Roman Catholic who trusts in the sacraments or the Lutheran who believes in his baptism. The issue is not which of these things you trusted in to save you, but that you trusted in something other than Jesus’ sacrificial work on the cross as the actual and only means of salvation for sinners. Please carefully consider your experience of salvation. Did you ask Jesus to come into your heart? Did you believe that He would save you that way? If so, you are not saved because that is not the way that Jesus saves sinners. In order to get saved, you must renounce your faith in Jesus entering your heart for salvation in the same way the Roman Catholic must renounce the sacraments and the Lutheran must renounce his infant baptism. It matters very little whether or not you agree with the gospel message that Jesus died on the cross to save sinners, if you trusted in something other than that (or in addition to it) to actually save you. The fact that you can say to me today, I know that I am going to heaven because Jesus died for me on the cross is also meaningless, if you have not repented of (turned away from) the false faith you trusted in to save you. You see, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross cannot be a mere spiritual adornment to the Christian faith, something that you focus on in spiritual devotion to God, because it alone is the Christian faith–the faith that you must trust in alone for the salvation of your soul.
Another thing you must understand is that if you asked Jesus to come into your heart and trusted in that for salvation, then you most likely did receive a spirit, but it was not the Spirit of Christ, it was a deceptive spirit, an evil spirit. Perhaps you noticed a big change in your life after asking Jesus into your heart, which made the experience seem very real to you and convinced you that it was genuine. But, this does not mean that it was true salvation. The Bible says that Satan is transformed into an angel of light and so are his servants. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). If your salvation experience was based on asking Jesus into your heart, instead of the true faith of Jesus Christ, then the transformation that it produced in your personal life was not of God, but of the devil. The truth is, Jesus does not enter a person’s heart when they invite Him in. That is not what the Bible teaches. (If you have confusion about this please read this article about the receiving Jesus plan of salvation). The fact is, no repentant sinner in the Bible was ever told to ask Jesus to come into his heart in order to get saved. No, not even one. Please check the Bible for yourself; you will see that I am telling you the truth. The Bible, however, does teach that Jesus (the Spirit of God) lives within Christians, but it does not teach that you become a Christian by asking Jesus to come into your heart or when Jesus enters your heart. The Bible says that Jesus enters a Christian’s heart on the basis of their faith in His blood sacrifice for their sins. It happens automatically in salvation and is not something that you are to seek after or ask for (Again, if you have confusion about this, please check the article that I linked to above). The Bible also very clearly tells us that it is possible to receive another spirit (a spirit other than Jesus): For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him (2 Corinthians 11:4). When you were told that you could get saved by asking Jesus into your heart, you heard another gospel, a gospel that is very different from the one that the Bible preaches. That gospel is not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible, but that of an imposter. It is the gospel of another Jesus, which leads you to receive another spirit, not the true Spirit of Christ. The Bible also tells us that there are false spirits in the world: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). The purpose of these false spirits is to deceive you, to trick you. That is Satan’s mission on this earth. If he can get you to trust in a false gospel and can give you a convincing experience that makes it seem legitimate, then he can keep you from the true gospel and genuine salvation. There is absolutely no biblical evidence to support the idea that a person can get saved by asking Jesus to come into his heart. Also, “asking Jesus into your heart” for salvation is a teaching that is contrary to the true means of salvation that the Bible teaches. Because it is unsupported by the Bible and contradicts the Bible’s clear teaching on the subject of salvation, it is entirely false and should not be trusted in. If you have already trusted in it, then you need to turn from it in repentance.
If you have asked Jesus into your heart and that was the focus of your salvation prayer, you must recognize that you are lost and that all of your spiritual devotion (that you thought you had) to God is worthless. It does not matter how much time you have spent in church, reading the Bible, tithing, praying, fasting, and “serving the Lord.” You are still lost in your sins and in need of salvation. Your spiritual works are worthless because you have never been saved. You are still alienated from God and in danger of eternal condemnation. You cannot just say, oh okay, I said the wrong thing, let me quickly correct that. No, it is not about saying the wrong words. It is about having the entirely wrong faith. You must understand that there is only one Christian faith and that you have not had it. Therefore, you have been in spiritual darkness the entire time you thought that you were in the light. And, If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:23). You see, you must come to the cross as a lost sinner, in need of salvation, who is condemned before God and guilty. That is the only way a sinner can come to the true faith of Jesus Christ because without repentance you are not really trusting in Christ’s sacrifice for salvation because you have not even recognized your true need for salvation. If you have trusted in asking Jesus into your heart to save you, please hear the truth, turn away from it in repentance, and put your faith in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to save you. That is the only way you will go to heaven when you die because the Bible says that that is the only way to get saved.
3. I called upon the Name of the Lord: You were taught that if you call upon God, He will save you. Sometimes this method of salvation is joined with asking Jesus into your heart. So, you might have actually done both things to get saved, perhaps together or at different times in your life (remember: a Roman Catholic trusts in many different things to save him and false plans of salvation oftentimes include numerous and sometimes outright contradictory means of salvation). To call upon the name of the Lord for salvation, you might have gotten on your knees and sincerely asked God to save you, cried out to him with tears asking for salvation, had a member of the church lead you in a prayer asking God for salvation. Most likely you heard a passage of Scripture that you were told demonstrated how to get saved. 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. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:9-11,13). This passage probably gave you the confidence that calling upon God for salvation is both biblical and a legitimate means of salvation. I covered this passage extensively in another section of the site (You do not need to call upon God for salvation) that I strongly encourage you to read. The fact is, the Romans 10 passage of Scripture has been horribly misrepresented by many pastors and preachers as a formula for salvation. To demonstrate this, I offer the following factual account:
I once went undercover as a lost person so that I could find out what a Baptist Church (Appleby Baptist) that my family was attending actually preached for salvation. I really wanted to find a faithful church to attend and would have even moved across the country to go to this church, but I didn’t fully trust that they were preaching the true faith and needed to be certain, so I wrote the church undercover as a prospective convert looking for salvation in order to get to the bottom of what they actually teach. I figured that the best way to find out what the church teaches for salvation is by seeing what they would say to a lost person seeking salvation. What follows is the exact word-for-word exchange between me and Dennis Anderson, the pastor of that church. (I am including this here so that you can see that calling upon the name of the Lord for salvation is an entirely different faith than trusting in the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross).
Dear Appleby Baptist Church,
Hi. I found your web site while searching for sermons online, and I have been listening to some of the pastor's sermons on your website (
www.applebybaptistchurch.com) and I am wondering about salvation. I know that I am not living like I should, and I would like to learn more about how to get saved. I do not know if this email will go to the pastor or not, but, if possible, I would like it if he could please respond and let me know a little bit more about what I need to do to get saved.
Thank you,
Jennifer Swanson (my undercover name)
From:
info@applebybaptistchurch.comTo:
jen_swanson@live.comSubject: RE: Question About Salvation...
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:54:59 -0600
Thank you for your question. Salvation is the work of the Lord. He uses the means of preaching to save them that believe. (I Corinthians 1: 21) Before God will save a person He shows them their need. We must face the fact that we are guilty before God. (Romans 3: 19) It is God who deals the measure of faith to believe Him. (Romans 12: 3) Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. (Romans 10: 17) God will grant someone repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If He has done so for you call upon Him. He will save you. (Romans 10: 10-13) You can depend on the faithfulness of God who calls us into His family. (I Corinthians 1:9) (Ephesians 2: 8-9)
We are glad to know that the information on the website has touched your heart. We will be happy to send you some printed material on the subject of salvation if you would like to provide a mailing address. If you have any further questions please let us know.
Sincerely,
Dennis Anderson
After reading Anderson’s email, I looked up every single reference that he had provided me to help me understand how to get saved. The fact is, not one verse explains Jesus work on Calvary to save lost sinners or even remotely alludes to the fact that Jesus died on the cross to save us. You can look them up yourself if you wish to verify this fact. The focus of Anderson’s message was on my need to call on God for salvation and the supposed fact that He will save me on the basis of my prayer asking Him for salvation. The fact is, if God can save you on the basis of your calling upon Him and asking, then why would you need to put your faith in Christ’s sacrifice for salvation at all? The truth is you wouldn’t need to, and that is why this pastor didn’t even mention the fact that Jesus died for my sins when leading me to “salvation. “ The simple truth is, trusting that God will save you based on your prayer asking Him to save you is an entirely different faith than trusting that Jesus has already completed the work of salvation on the cross and that you simply need to come as a lost sinner believing in the sufficiency of that work that He has already done to save you. It is also true that if you have trusted in God answering your prayer to save you (rather than simply placing your faith in the work He has already done to save you on the cross) then you are not saved. You are still lost, and you need to repent of your false faith and false conversion and trust only in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary for your full salvation. The Bible says that all lost sinners are at enmity against God (they are against Him in their hearts and minds). If you have trusted in a false means of salvation, your heart is still wicked, and you might be willing to do or say anything to cover up that fact. You might even seek to hurt those who give you the true gospel. After I wrote to Dennis Anderson and informed him that I was actually a true believer who was trying to find out what he really preached for salvation and confronted him about the fact that he didn’t mention Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross when attempting to lead me to salvation, he wrote me back with these hateful words:
From:
info@applebybaptistchurch.comTo:
jen_swanson@live.comSubject: RE: Question About Salvation...
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 17:50:13 -0600
Sarah, Jennifer, Judas,
You have no Bible to back up what you believe and practice. You are a wordy windbag who wrests the Scriptures to your own destruction. (2 Peter 3:16)
It is no wonder you are not saved. You’ve never stopped your mouth long enough to become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)
You have a wicked heart that not only denies but defies the Scriptures. (Acts 13:10)
If James and Brooke are God’s elect, they will see you for the devil you are. If not, they can follow you instead of the Word.
Standing on the Word,
Dennis Anderson
The fact is, I had not wrested (twisted) the Scriptures at all. I was not Judas who had betrayed Christ and His gospel. I had merely insisted that in order for a person to truly get saved, he must put his faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary and that nothing less than that (or other than that) is salvation, and I had urged James and Brooke (my family members) to believe what I was saying about salvation. But, the issue here is not Pastor Anderson and what he believes, but you and what you believed on to save you. I included that email exchange to demonstrate the false gospel of calling upon God for salvation and the violence with which it is defended by those who preach it. I also wanted to demonstrate the fact that calling upon God for salvation can completely eliminate the cross, without changing its basic message of salvation. This demonstrates that it is a false gospel. The fact is, if you believed that calling upon God would save you, then you trusted in a false gospel, and you are actually against Christ and against His true gospel (just as Pastor Anderson was against me and the truth that I tried to share with him about salvation). You must recognize that fact and genuinely repent of your lost condition in order to get saved.
I would like to add just one other thing about the calling upon God plan of salvation. After having a false profession for most of my life, two years ago I finally came to realization that I had never been saved, based on the fact that my salvation experience did not fit with what the Bible teaches about salvation (You can see I Once Was Lost for the exact details). Well, during the time that I first realized that I was lost and in need of salvation, I was struggling within myself and seeking salvation from God. I was still lost, but was earnestly seeking salvation because I didn’t want to die in my sins and go to hell. One afternoon, in the confusion of my soul, I asked God to please show me if now I was saved. I had been reading a lot in the Bible about salvation and had already realized that I was a lost sinner who needed to get saved, but I just wasn’t sure if I had now been saved. It was confusing to me and my soul was very troubled with the thought of still being lost and wondering where I stood with God. Well, after I had prayed about this issue, I continued with my day, and as I walked through the kitchen I very distinctly thought in my mind the passage to a Bible verse. The part that went through my mind said, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. I kept thinking of that passage over and over again. I thought if God is rich unto all that call upon him, then He is rich unto me, and maybe I am saved. All of this happened, though, during a time of much confusion in my soul, and ultimately I didn’t a full assurance of salvation based on that verse. But, for several days it sort of circled in my mind,and I felt comfort from it that maybe I was saved: I had called upon God, and He is rich unto all that call upon Him, so maybe I am saved. The reason that I mention it here is that little phrase is part of the Romans 10 calling upon God passage, and if I had falsely gained a full assurance of salvation based on it,. I would still be lost myself. I know that for a fact because at that time I had not come to the truth about faith in Jesus’ sacrifice as the only means of salvation, and I still believed that a “saved” person could lose his salvation and end up in hell. I firmly believe that Satan was trying to use that piece of Scripture to convince me that I was already saved, so that he could keep me from the true faith. If you doubt that Satan uses Scripture to trick people, then please read the account of Jesus temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Satan misused Scripture to try to get Jesus to do something contrary to Scripture. If I had believed that God was rich unto me (in granting me salvation) because I had called upon Him, then Satan would have successfully thwarted my attempt to get saved. Again, this is exactly the type of thing that the Bible tells us that Satan does. In Acts 13 it says, And when they [Paul and Barnabas] had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus: Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him. And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? (Acts 13:6-10) This passage makes it clear that Satan does attempt to turn people, who wish to hear the gospel, away from the true faith of Jesus Christ. After I finally got saved, I remembered the incident with the Romans 10 passage and how I had almost trusted in it to give me assurance before I came to the truth faith, and I realized more than ever how that passage of Scripture has been twisted and used by Satan to deceive people and keep them in darkness.
If your testimony of salvation involves calling upon God in prayer in order to get saved and you trusted that you got saved when you sincerely asked God to save you, then I beg of you to please turn away from it and trust in the gospel message of Scripture. Please go over the article on this site about calling upon the name of the Lord again and again (this is the same article I linked to earlier) and carefully look at what the Bible teaches about salvation. Calling upon God is not a true means of salvation. Remember: Satan wants to keep you from the faith, but God has given us the truth about salvation in His Word. The overwhelming testimony of Scripture is that we are saved by faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Please read the Scripture verses that teach about salvation. I have included many of them in the Faith in Christ’s sacrifice article on this site. Please read those passages and look them up in your Bible and search the Scriptures to see what God’s true plan of salvation actually is. The fact is, the Bible tells us that Jesus came into the world to save sinners and that Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh, bled and died on the cross to make the payment for our sins. I pray that you will hear it and believe it. There is no other means of salvation. I pray that you will turn away from every false faith and believe the true gospel.
4. I Surrendered/Gave my Life to Jesus: In this case, you were taught that you can get saved by turning your life over to God, giving your life to Jesus, or giving your life to God. Sometimes you will hear different things, like surrender your life to Christ, give God your life, or Give your life to Jesus. In either case, the means of salvation is the same: You get saved by surrendering your life to God. Most like you heard that you are sinner and that you have not lived your life for God. You also probably heard that God loves you and wants you to be saved from your sin (again, John 3:16 is commonly used). It is also quite likely that you were told that Jesus died for you on the cross. These gospel truths are nearly always included with this plan of salvation, but it is very important to note that salvation hinges on
5. I trusted in/Received Jesus as my Personal Savior
6. I must hold out faithful until the end to be saved
http://4gospeltruth.org/page63.html
