God’s Plan of Salvation

By Brian Mitchell       We are going to go Back to the Basics—as I want to spend some time this year going over some of the basics of the Christian faith. In doing, I can think of no better place to start, than with God’s plan of salvation. I want to highlight the part about it being God’s plan, because that is what it is. It is not my plan. It is not the  elder’s plan. It is not even the local church of Christ’s plan. It is God’s plan. God offers salvation and thus only He has the right to tell us how it may be acquired. When it comes to being saved, we don’t get a say in the matter, we either do what God says or we don’t.     If I can’t show you from the Bible how to be saved, you have no need to listen to me, for my beliefs about salvation are not important; God’s are. Thus, for the remainder of this year I want to talk to you about God’s plan of salvation. Lessons on topics such as: Faith, Repentance, Confession, Baptism and Faithfulness. And I know what some of you are thinking, don’t we already know all of this?     Some of you may be thinking, we already know all of this, believe all of this, and have done all of this. While this may be true, I can think of a number of reasons that lessons such as these are desperately needed in our world today and in the Lord’s Church. They build the faith of the saved. It is needed from time to time to be reminded of what we have done and why we have done it—it strengthens our faith and also helps us examine whether or not we have truly done what God says we must do to be saved—Edification.     They teach the lost—not everyone here today is saved and thus what kind of church would we be if we did not preach about God’s plan of salvation—Instruction. They prepare us to go out and confidently talk to our neighbors about what God’s says they must do to be saved—Evangelistic. They help to make sure that Bible truth is passed from one generation to the next.     The fact is that are a lot of young people today who don’t know what God’s plan of salvation is and many more who don’t believe it makes a difference. So, while you may think you know all about God’s plan of salvation, not everyone does and not everyone has obeyed it, and what’s more; it never hurts to be reminded of what we have done and what has been done for us. So today we are going to begin our study of God’s Plan of Salvation, by considering what the Bible says about Faith.

- Brian Mitchell serves as a minister with the Jackson Church of Christ in Jackson, MO. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at https://www.jacksonchurchofchrist.net