personal salvation | Stephen Nielsen

In the wake of America’s new administration—a new President with new policies—many people are afraid. Some are afraid of being deported. Some are afraid of being jailed. Many are afraid of the new President’s extremism: on immigration, on his supposed anti-environment beliefs, and his anti-woke beliefs, on all his Bidden reversals, and on what he will do to our country, The outgoing President is so afraid, that he has preemptively pardoned his entire family and many of his loyal supporters, like Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, and Liz Cheney.

While I was asking myself how anyone can overcome fears, I came across a number of Scripture verses that will give us a clear answer.

Scriptures That Will Help Us Overcome Fear

In the following five verses we will find that the reason we fear is because we lack something; we lack a relationship with God—a relationship that will give us a lasting peace with God, a trust in Him, a saving faith, a loving Heavenly Father, and an enduring love from God. Let’s look at these verses.

John 14:27

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

We need not be afraid of anything in this world if we have the peace that God gives us.

Psalm 56:11

In God I have put my trust;

I will not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

If you put your trust in God you need not be afraid of anything.

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the strength of my life;

Of whom shall I be afraid?

If you will give your heart to Him to save you, you need not be afraid of anything. He will be your strength.

Romans 8:14-15

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

If you will give your life to Him, if you will trust Him to save you (if you will ask Him to forgive your sins and cleanse you and give you a new life), you will be His adopted child and will no longer have that spirit of fear in you. He will be your Father in which you can cry out to Him whenever you fear anything or have any needs.

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.

If you are saved and are one of His children, you will abide in His love and will have no fear.

Is prayer really necessary? Some people say that prayer is just a type of meditation to make us feel better and to lull us into a false sense of security. Others say that since God is loving and good, He will give us all the things we need and will accomplish His good will whether we pray or not. I suppose most of us who are Christians say, “Yes I believe that prayer is absolutely necessary.” But, by our lack of prayer, don’t we demonstrate that we believe it is not necessary? If we Christians really believed that prayer was necessary there would be prayer groups popping up all over. If we really believed that prayer was necessary people would be eager to go to church; our churches would be packed full, not only on Sunday morning but also at the Wednesday night prayer meeting!

Prayer is indeed necessary, and in the next nine blogs I will give you nine reasons why. Here is the first one.

1. Prayer Is Necessary to Obtain Personal Salvation

The Bible says, “Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). We know that prayer does not save; God saves. But we see from this verse that God has made prayer the avenue through which salvation is granted. He decided that we must call upon Him before He will save us.

Paul tells us in Romans 10:10 that man believes with the heart, but then with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So believing with the heart is only part of faith—or, I would say, it is only the first step in receiving the gift of true faith from God. To have complete faith, a saving faith, we must believe with the heart and also confess with the mouth. This confession of the mouth, which is prayer, is what activates faith—or brings to life the faith of God He gives us in His Son (Heb. 12:2). Without this confession of prayer our faith would be dead and worthless. But with prayer our faith becomes alive, which results in our salvation. Therefore, prayer is essential for salvation.

What a great privilege God has given us. He has given us the privilege of having a part in our own salvation. That part comes with the decision we must make as to whether we will receive His Son Jesus Christ through prayer or not. If we should choose not to receive Him that is our God given choice, and He will not force us to receive Him. But if we choose to receive Him we can do it through prayer.

Your prayer should sound something like this:

Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I believe that you died and paid the penalty for my sins. Right now I repent of my sins and I invite you to come into my life. Please come into my life and give me a new life. Lord, help me to get to know you and to trust you. Amen.

Believing prayer then is absolutely necessary. It is what we must engage in to bring us from spiritual death to life in Christ.