What Is True Salvation and How Should We Understand Salvation?

Hello brothers and sisters of Spiritual Q&A:

As is known to us believers, the Lord Jesus carried out a stage of work of redemption for mankind. The pastors and elders often preach that we are saved as long as we acknowledge the Lord Jesus with our mouth and believe in Him in our hearts. Just as the Bible says, “That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Romans 10:9–10). So, they believe as long as we acknowledge the Lord’s name, confess and repent to the Lord, we are saved. And once we are saved, we are eternally saved. However, recently I’ve heard some brothers and sisters who had went out to listen to sermons say that believing in the Lord Jesus only means receiving His redemption and having one’s sins pardoned, but not truly attaining salvation. As for what true salvation is, our church’s brothers and sisters often discuss it, but we haven’t got a certain answer. And I still don’t understand it. So I wonder how you understand it. Looking forward to your reply!

Can Those Who Are Saved by Faith Enter God’s Kingdom?

By Saverio, Italy

Some Christians believe that as long as they accept the Lord Jesus’ salvation of the cross, verbally acknowledge the Lord and believe in Him in their hearts, then they are saved and will be able to enter the heavenly kingdom. There is also a biblical basis for this belief, which is: “That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Romans 10:9–10). They therefore believe even more strongly that those who are saved by faith can enter into the heavenly kingdom. But there are some Christians who remain confused, and they think that, seeing as we are capable of becoming hot-headed and losing our tempers at people every day, so much so that we are not even able to show our family members tolerance and patience, and we are capable of telling lies to deceive others in our everyday lives, can people such as this who live in sin enter into the kingdom of God? Let’s fellowship about this topic today.

How to Pray to God Correctly to Be Heard by Him

By Zhong Cheng

“O dear Abba Father, You are the truth and the way, You are the life, You are the lamp before our feet and the light on our path. … You are the head of our family. We’re willing to obey You, love You, heed Your words and follow Your directives …”

On Saturday mornings, Wang Fang and her granddaughter Tiantian prayed to God together. The day they finished praying and rose up, Tiantian, with her lips pouted, rubbed her legs which had become numb and then said unpleasantly, “Grandma, we again prayed for over an hour today. Our words are too repetitive, and I’m sick of hearing them. Can we have a shorter prayer the next time?”

I Can Get Along With My Daughter Who Lives From Paycheck to Paycheck

By Song Ling

Children’s Excessive Consumption Brought Their Mothers Annoyance

One Sunday, I was chatting with several mothers in Lan Bei Park.

Aunt Liu said helplessly, “Yesterday my child spent a few hundred yuan on four dresses. Today she is going to eat at a restaurant with her friends. She doesn’t feel any regrets for spending money, as if it were got without pains. No matter what I say, she won’t listen, and when I talk too much, she will get peeved off. Alas, I really cannot control her.”

“My daughter is the same. She spends money like it’s water. When she sees clothes that she likes, she will buy them, and her wardrobe gets stuffed full of clothes. I’m frugal and even unwilling to buy a dress or shoes, while she spends three or four hundred yuan on a dress. What’s worse, she can’t bear any criticism of this, and even blames me for nagging her that she doesn’t speak to me—she is too immature. This really fills me with anger and helplessness.”

Learn to Rely on God in the Face of Difficulty

By Chentu

Introduction: In our real lives, we often encounter many difficulties and problems. When this happens, some people choose to rely on themselves to solve them, some choose to rely on their relatives and friends, some choose to rely on their power. … Then what does the protagonist of this article, Xiaorui, do in the face of difficulty?

After accepting God’s gospel, Xiaorui verbally acknowledged that God rules over everything and all things are held in God’s hands, but she always thought that in real life, people could rely on God for big issues, but they had to rely on themselves in small ones, because God was so supreme that He didn’t take care of matters of daily life. Thus she seldom looked to and relied on God in ordinary times. That was until she had got through the difficulty of selling her house …

Is Eternal Life Within the Bible?

By Weixiang

One evening, Brother Gao was rushing along, gripping the Bible and hurrying to the home of Brother Gui …

When he got there, the two of them sat down on the couch.

Brother Gao opened the Bible and said, “Brother Gui, I’ve come across a problem in my reading of the Bible and I don’t know how to solve it. I feel like this problem is key to us obtaining eternal life through our faith in the Lord, so I hurried over to seek the answer with you.”

Brother Gui smiled and said, “OK. Tell me all about it.”

Brother Gao then said, “We all know that the Bible is the cannon of Christianity and that all Christians must read it. Whether we are attending gatherings, performing our spiritual devotions, preaching the gospel or giving sermons, we always have to adhere to the Bible. Therefore, we could say that the Bible is a part of our life that we could not be without. God’s previous works are recorded in the Bible as well as the testimonies of many people. We firmly believe that the Bible contains life within it, and as long as we persevere in reading the Bible then we can obtain eternal life. But when I was studying the Bible this evening, I saw that the Lord Jesus said: ‘Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. And you will not come to Me, that you might have life’ (John 5: 39–40). This really confused me, for seeing as the Bible contains the words of God and the testimonies of man, then by reading the Bible we should be able to obtain eternal life. Why then did the Lord Jesus say that eternal life is not within the Bible? How are we to understand these words? I don’t really understand this very clearly, so I was wondering what your understanding of it is.”

It’s a Piece of Cake to Educate My Son by Relying on God

By Yuqing

Exasperated by Her Son’s Poor Grade

“Good evening, parents. Thanks for your taking time out of your schedule to attend this parent teacher meeting. Now I’ll give you your child’s report card….” said the head teacher on the platform. After taking Xiaojie’s report card and seeing the number “79” written very clearly, Yuqing muttered, shaking her head: “That’s it, he is finished. He has good grades in math, but he only got 79 marks out of 100; what if he can’t get into high school? He’s greatly disappointed me.” At the thought of this, the anger uncontrollably raised its head inside of her.

Upon arriving home, Yuqing headed straight for Xiaojie’s room and lectured him: “You did rather badly in the exam this time. Stop playing from now on, or else you’ll be unable to get into high school, let alone college.” When he heard this, Xiaojie lowered his head and didn’t say a word. Seeing that, Yuqing then said gently: “Son, you have to know only knowledge can change your fate. You see, since I failed to attend university, now I have to be a worker in a factory, doing hard and dirty work. That’s why I want you to study hard, get into a good college, and have a cushy and well-paid job in the future.” Hearing this, Xiaojie nodded reluctantly.

Why Do Jews Reject Jesus As the Messiah? Here Are 2 Reasons

By Xia Wei

As we all know, the Jews were God’s chosen people, Israel was the birthplace of God’s work, the Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would lead the lives of the Israelites, and thus the Jews had eagerly yearned for the coming of the Messiah. But why was it that when the Messiah—the Lord Jesus—truly came to work, they didn’t accept Him, yet opposed Him and even crucified Him? This is what we will talk about today. May the Lord guide us.