Devotionals from my Bible app: What Does It Mean To Say Yes To Jesus?

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3:23-24, NKJV

Since the beginning of the year, my Bible app has been regularly including extra prompts about spreading the Gospel of our Lord, King, and Savior Jesus Christ to nonbelievers. I've had a couple conversations so far as of the writing of this post, one over the telephone, and one more recently where a different friend indicated that, despite all that he is doing for his church, he doesn't feel spiritually grounded. I made a suggestion that he begin a Bible reading program and pray a simple prayer asking God to reveal to him something new about the Bible passage that he read that day. He responded indicating he was going to do something different (which leads me to believe that he won't take my suggestion). He doesn't have to take my suggestion, but I'm finding myself concerned that he isn't aware how seriously he (and we all) need to take regarding spending time with the Lord.

The devotional below answers the question: what does it mean to say yes to Jesus? For a long time, I had fallen into the trap that, simply because I attend church and know about Jesus meant that I had my ticket into heaven. Boy, was I wrong. I needed (and still need) to know Him personally, to have that relationship out of which fruits of obedience to the Lord grow and flourish. In a nutshell, that is what it means to say yes to Jesus. Read on below: 

The verse below paints the full picture of the reality of both our nature as well as God's nature. None of us are good enough to go to heaven. That's the bad news. But the good news is, because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross by dying and shedding His blood for us (and subsequently conquering death when God raised Him back to life on the third day afterward), we can enter into heaven upon our own natural deaths by receiving Jesus as Savior and submitting our entire lives to Him as Lord and King.

At the end of the day, it is God who makes us righteous in His sight -- it's His righteousness, not ours. And by His (Jesus's) blood, we have the opportunity to receive that necessary salvation. But we then have to take that next step: receiving Him as our Savior, submitting to and declaring Him as Lord and King of our lives, and then walking in obedience to whatever it is that He tells us to do.