How Can I Be Saved?

In 2nd Timothy chapter 4, the apostle Paul is addressing the topic of spiritual readiness, charging his
friend and protege Timothy to...
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

We can be inspired from this passage to make sure that we are ready to communicate our faith as an ambassador of Christ.  We can be prepared for whenever the Lord chooses to use us. If we have been saved, we can recognize that God is writing an amazing story through us - of His incredible love, His abundant grace, and His wonderful faithfulness. We have been given a testimony and are called to be equipped to testify of God's goodness.

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In the book of Acts, chapter 8, we find a man named Philip, who was sent by God, to a specific road in the desert, to a meeting arranged by God.  We pick up the story:
(27) And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship,
28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go near and overtake this chariot."
30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?"
31 And he said, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.

Ultimately, Philip shared the gospel with this Ethiopian leader, and ultimately baptized him.

He had been a police officer for 20 years, but he had been temporarily quarantined.  He started to feel ill and was afraid that he had contracted COVID-19.  We can remember that people on the front lines, such as law enforcement, first responders, and health care workers, are at a greater risk to the Coronavirus.

This officer, struggling with his own fears, wanted answers.  So, he asked Siri, "How can I get saved?"  This took him to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's SearchForJesus.net page - that page, like the PeaceWithGod.net page linked to the Faith Radio website, is affiliated with the BGEA.

So, according to BillyGraham.org, this officer, who is called "David" in the article, went to the website and began typing.  The article states:

“I’m struggling with faith, and with everything going on … even more so,” David typed.

Gloria, his chat coach, asked him a simple question: “Where do you look for peace in uncertain times?”

David answered that he looked within himself.

“I can understand that,” Gloria said. “The catch with that, though, is that our inner selves can be really disturbed by what we see and hear. That can lead to anxiety, as you know.”

David shared that he was awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test and confessed that he was not ready to die.  Gloria reminded him about the peace that he could have in this world - and in the next. The article goes on to relate that David said: “I’m so lost...And very scared.”

“Those are important words: ‘I’m so lost,'” Gloria responded. “You have already taken the first step towards God. You know that you have a problem. It sounds like you have been figuring out that your way is not the best.”

Gloria shared about the plan of salvation, using verses from Romans that illustrate how all had sinned, that we all deserved death. but that Christ came to give us the free gift of salvation.  She moved into John 3:16.  The article says:

“God sent his own son, Jesus, to earth,” Gloria shared. “Jesus lived a life without sin but died a terrible death. He took all of our sins upon himself, all of our punishment upon himself.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” David asked.

“Believe,” Gloria typed. “I can’t give you a sales pitch on that. It has to come from your heart.”

The BGEA article also notes:

He said he had prayed the prayer he found on the site, asking Jesus to be his Savior.

Gloria praised God for leading David to salvation. She also made sure David understood that the power to have peace with God doesn’t come from the words in the prayer but from faith in Christ.

“The words of the prayer are not magical,” Gloria said. “The important thing is the attitude of your heart.”

She encouraged David to take the next step in his new relationship with God by signing up for the free Know Jesus discipleship course online.

David, this quarantined police officer, told Gloria about how he found the website in the first place, by asking Siri how he could be saved.

God will use any number of methods in order to get the gospel into the heart of a person who needs to know Christ as his or her Savior.  For the person with a heart that is tender toward God, we can be confident that Jesus wants that person to come into a saving knowledge of Himself.  As Jesus taught, seek and you shall find.

It is a wonderful thing to see the Lord working in a person's heart, and believers can be prepared to share when God brings someone to us who is just a step or a few steps away from making that commitment to Christ.  We just have to make sure, like Gloria or Philip from the book of Acts, that we are ready and reliant on the Holy Spirit.  And, at all times, we can be prepared to share our faith.