Life Begins Here
Until you have been saved by Jesus, you’re the walking dead. Trapped in your sins. Spiritually unconscious. Separated from God. Salvation is God’s rescue operation: God’s plan and our hope, for God’s glory and our good.
Jesus came to earth, died on a cross, and was raised to life to rescue you from sin, make you alive, and bring you into eternal relationship with God. Salvation is not only a matter of life after death, but also the way to live an abundant life on earth with Jesus, here and now.
Simply put, Jesus is salvation, and salvation is life (1 John 5:12).
That’s why Northside celebrates the empty tomb.
When you are saved or converted, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in you!
Salvation Doesn't Need to be Confusing
Depending on your family background or religious tradition, you may have heard a variety of ideas about salvation.
Perhaps you think it’s what happens when you walk an aisle, pray a prayer or get baptized. Maybe you believe salvation is only for “good people,” or that salvation is something you have to earn with good works or something you can lose if you do bad things.
You don’t have to wonder or doubt. Jesus wants you to know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13). That’s why the Bible — God’s Word to us — is clear about every aspect of salvation:
Common Questions
How Are You Saved?
Jesus saves you when you repent and trust in Jesus' forgiveness for your sins. Your salvation is God's gift to you.
It is not earned by anything you do. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
Prayer is a way to communicate our belief to God.
Who Can Be Saved?
Salvation is for all people.
No one’s sin is greater than God’s grace.
Jesus’ desire is for everyone to be saved.
When is a Person Saved?
An unregenerate (unrepentant) person will never come to Jesus, because he does not want Jesus. As long as someone is hostile to Christ, he has no affection for Him.
We are dead in our sin. We walk according to the powers of this world and indulge the lusts of the flesh. Until the Holy Spirit changes us, we have hearts of stone.
An unregenerate heart is without affection for Christ; it is both lifeless and loveless. The Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our hearts so that we see the sweetness of Christ and embrace Him.
None of us loves Christ perfectly, but we cannot love Him at all unless the Holy Spirit changes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh.
How Do We Know We're Saved?
The evidence of our salvation is what’s happening in us now. Jesus gives every believer the Holy Spirit, which gives us a desire to live for God and the ability to hear, recognize and respond to God’s voice.
To love God, to want to trust and follow Him, to enjoy His presence, to hear God’s voice in Scripture, and to feel conviction of sin and the need for repentance are all common experiences of those who are saved (John 10:3-5).
Can You Lose Your Salvation?
You didn’t earn your salvation, so you can’t lose your salvation.
If you have put your trust in Jesus and the Holy Spirit has changed your heart, God promises that nothing and no one can separate you from Him.
Do You Want To Be Saved?
Perhaps you’ve felt unworthy of salvation because of your past. Perhaps you’ve thought good works and keeping rules saved you. Maybe you thought you were saved because you were baptized or prayed a prayer, without experiencing a change of heart.
The good news is that Jesus is calling you to trust and believe that He has done all the work. Jesus' death, burial and resurrection means we are forgiven and set free to live an abundant life with God here on earth and in eternity.
Jesus said, “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Jesus is clear that if a person of this world is to be accepted into this other kingdom—the kingdom of heaven—he must be converted. Put very simply, to be converted is absolutely necessary to enter the kingdom of God.
What does the word conversion mean?
In the biblical sense, conversion means a turning—a spiritual turning away from sin in repentance and to Christ in faith. It is a dramatic turning away from one path in order to pursue an entirely new one. It involves turning one’s back to the system of the world and its anti-God values. It involves a turning away from dead religion and self-righteousness. It involves a complete pivot, an about-face, in order to enter through the narrow gate that leads to life.
Conversion also involves the idea of changing direction.
A true spiritual conversion radically alters the direction of one’s life. It is not a partial change wherein one is able to straddle the fence between two worlds. It is not a superficial turning, a mere rearranging of the outward facade of a person’s life. Conversion is not a gradual change that occurs over a period of time, like sanctification. Instead, a genuine conversion occurs much deeper within the soul of a person. It is a decisive break with old patterns of sin and the world and the embracing of new life in Christ by faith.
This spiritual conversion is so profound that it involves many changes in a person.
It involves a change of mind, which is an intellectual change; and a change of view, a new recognition of God, self, sin, and Christ. It involves a change of affections, which is an emotional change, a change of feeling, a sorrow for sin committed against a holy and just God. It involves a change of will, which is a volitional change, an intentional turning away from sin and a turning to God through Christ to seek forgiveness.
The entire person—mind, affections, and will—is radically, completely, and fully changed in conversion.
The whole purpose of conversion is to bring men and women into a right relationship with God.
This is why Christ came, and it is the reason for which He died. It was God who was “in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself ” (2 Cor. 5:19).
Conversion is the crying need of the soul. Until one’s life is turned from sin to Christ, nothing else matters.
If you have any questions, we want to help you take a next step.