Look at what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3.

“But now, God has shown us a different way of being right in His sight – not obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we can all be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.” (Romans 3:21-22 NLT)

Paul is saying to us that salvation from God and reconciliation with God is not a result of our good works or abiding by some religious system. We experience salvation by simply trusting Jesus to “take away our sins,” which in turn makes us “right with God.”

That’s not what many people believe. Many people believe (and many religions teach) that salvation from God and reconciliation with Him comes as a result of the “good deeds” we perform in our lives. These same people are then prone to compare themselves with others and determine that since their lives are apparently better than others they are going to make it to heaven because of their good deeds and their “good lives.” The Bible declares, however, in Romans 3:23: “All have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” That means all of us are sinners to some degree, and our sin, even though it is less than others sin, disqualifies us from being recipients of God’s salvation. In other words, if you are depending on your “good deeds” and “good life” to get you to heaven, you will never make it. That’s why Paul said in Romans 3:27: “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith.”

Others believe that following the tenants of some religious system will cause a person to be “right with God” and enable them to go to heaven. In our text Paul was addressing the beliefs of the Jews of his time, who believed that following the tenants and beliefs of their religious system would make them “right with God.” That’s why Paul wrote the following words in Romans 3:20, 28: “No one can ever be made right with God by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it. . . . We are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.” This means that neither professing Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons or others can get to heaven if they are unwilling to acknowledge that it’s not their religion but a relationship with Jesus Christ that makes them “right with God.” Sometimes when questioned about their salvation, people will respond: “Well I belong to the Baptist Church, the Catholic Church or some other type of Christian church.” As one great evangelist said: “Being in a Church doesn’t make one a Christian any more than being in a garage makes one a car.” There are many people in Churches today who are living good, moral lives who are destined for hell rather than heaven because they haven’t repented of their sins, placed their faith in Jesus, and surrendered their lives to Him.

Experiencing salvation from God and reconciliation with God all comes back to our response to Jesus and our relationship with Jesus. Paul wrote in Romans 3:23-26: “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in His gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed His blood, sacrificing His life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when He did not punish those who sinned in former times. And He is entirely fair and just in this present time when He declares sinners to be right in His sight because they believe in Jesus.”

That means that the only way to God the Father, and the only way to Heaven, is through trusting in Jesus and what He done for us on the cross of Calvary. That’s how Paul saw it. That’s how I see it.

How about you – what is your response to what Paul wrote about the basis for experiencing God’s salvation in our lives?