For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:— Eph. 2:8
Far too many have confused and deceived others by making salvation seem more difficult than it is. Never forget— it is not what we do for Him that saves us, but what He does for us. Salvation comes “through faith” alone. He who only believes is the only one who actually receives.
J. Gresham Machen put it like this:”Acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ, as He is offered to us in the gospel of His redeeming work, is saving faith. Despairing of any salvation to be obtained by our own efforts, we simply trust in Him to save us; we say no longer, as we contemplate the Cross, merely ‘He saved others’ or ‘He saved the world’ or ‘He saved the Church’; but we say, every one of us, by the strange individualizing power of faith, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me.’
When a man once says that, in his heart and not merely with his lips, then no matter what his guilt may be, no matter how far he is beyond any human pale, not matter how little opportunity he has for making good the evil that he has done, he is a ransomed soul, a child of God forever.”
