How does one get saved?
One of the most important things a church can teach is how a person gets saved. In this article, I am going to explain how the FALC believes one gets saved, and what the Bible says about how a person gets saved.
In the FALC, they teach that you must receive a blessing from someone in their church to have your sins forgiven & become a Christian. They teach that you must be apart of their fellowship, and even if you believe the exact same thing that they believe, but are apart of the Laestadian fellowship, for example, you cannot be saved because you are not apart of their same group. They believe the Holy Spirit can only reside in one fellowship, and the FALC is the only group with the right spirit.
If you leave the FALC, you are no longer a Christian, according to them, no matter what you believe or how you live.
The FALC believes that to get converted, you must receive a blessing from one of them. This is proven by how excited they are when someone receives a blessing and gets “converted” to their faith.
At the FALC, there is no confession that I know of when someone gets converted. You just receive this blessing, and attend their church, and that is evidence that you are a Christian. It does not matter if you continue on gossiping, committing sexual sin, hating people, stealing, lying, and being prideful. You can just keep on doing exactly what you did before, as long as you keep going to their church and receive blessings. The Bible speaks very differently about this!
What the FALC does not talk about when considering if someone has become a Christian:
Confession of sin & forsaking sin (1 John 1:9, Proverbs 28:13)
Confession that Jesus Christ is Lord (Romans 10:9)
Repentance (changing your mind to believe what is right about God) (Acts 3:19)
Calling upon the name of the Lord to be saved (Romans 10:9, Acts 3:19)
Turn away from wicked deeds & devote your life to Christ (Isaiah 55:6-7, Romans 12:1, Romans 6)
Pick up your cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24)
Faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation (Romans 5:1)
Turning to the Lord (Isaiah 45:22, Acts 17:27, Hebrews 11:6)
Receiving Christ (John 1:12)
None of these things are working for our salvation. These are all acts of faith that are separate from works. All of these things are commands of God, and as we are made in His image, with the capability to reason, acknowledge that we are sinners, and recognize that we need Jesus to save us. We are able to know that we have broken God’s commandments and there is absolutely no way we can save ourselves, there is nothing we can add to our salvation, and we need to be saved by the completed work of Christ alone. God made us able to call upon His name, and receive His grace and mercy as a free gift.
Once you have recieved the free gift of God, and are following Christ, this should be evident in your life as you are changed by Jesus and His love.
Bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)
Walk in a relationship with Christ (John 17:3)
Do the will of the Father (Matthew 7:21)
Obey Jesus (John 14:15)
Know God, obey the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:8)
Love the Lord Jesus in sincerity (Ephesians 6:24)
1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
This says that in order to receive forgiveness of sins & be cleansed from all unrighteousness, one must confess their sins. I have experienced someone confessing sin to me maybe two times in my entire time at the FALC (27 years). I remember confessing sins a couple times as well because of a bothered conscience, but it was a very rare occasion. Most of the time I just ignored my sin and kept doing it, and kept giving and receiving blessings. We did not confess sin as a lifestyle and I never remember being taught to confess my sins to anyone. Where there is no confession, there is no healing, so I lived my life so hurt by so many people, and being hurtful to people, and just sweeping it all under the rug, rarely talking about it. When you ignore sin like that, it just festers and grows. It hurts you and leads to death. I had so many wounds that just did not get better without confession. When you talk to God about your sin and how others have hurt you, and confess to someone else how you have hurt them, and truly apologize and truly forgive each other, there is wonderful healing. This is God’s design.
Psalm 32:1-5
How blessed is he whose wrongdoing is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!
How blessed is a person whose guilt the Lord does not take into account,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality failed as with the dry heat of summer. Selah
I acknowledged my sin to You,And I did not hide my guilt;
I said, “I will confess my wrongdoings to the Lord”;
And You forgave the guilt of my sin.
At the FALC, I do not remember ever being taught to turn away from my sin & follow Jesus Christ. Certain sins were expected to be stopped, but other things we just accepted as “this is just how we live, and this is just how we are.” I never remember hearing that God has the power to free us from our sin, and by His grace, we can walk in righteousness. I never heard of abiding in Christ, and this is how we can overcome our sin, by His strength and power. Actually, I was taught the opposite. I was taught that we are all just “grace beggars” and that I would always be a sinner. I still agree that I will always be a sinner, but I was not taught the power of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life, to strengthen you to overcome sin, and grow in godliness. (Romans 6:12-14, Romans 8:12-13, 1 Corinthians 15:34, 2 Corinthians 2:14, Colossians 3:5, 1 Peter 4:1-2)
1 Peter 4:1-2:
“Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”
The idea of growing in Christ-likeness, living for the will of God, and pursuing godliness is foreign in the FALC. (1 Timothy 6:11–16) I would have thought this the be totally self-righteous. I never knew that the Bible teaches that we should do this, by His grace! We cannot do it on our own strength, but by HIS strength alone, we can bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. (Galatians 5:22-23)
The Bible says we need to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Romans 10:9)! That means to speak it with your mouth, and live this out in your life as your reality. From my experience in the FALC, it is rare to hear anyone say the name of Jesus at all, besides in songs and blessings, and I don’t think I ever heard someone confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Luke 13:3-5:
“I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
According to the FALC, repent means to just come and ask for a blessing. I don’t think I was ever taught that I need to turn away from my sin, and follow Jesus Christ. I did not even really know what sin was, so I could turn away from it, nor did I know what following Jesus Christ looked like because I never read my Bible.
The Bible teaching that we must call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. (Romans 10:13, Acts 2:21, Joel 2:32, Acts 22:16, Zephaniah 3:9, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Isaiah 55:6-7)
I definitely was not ever taught that I need to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. This is contrary to FALC doctrine. They teach that you cannot do this. They teach that you must receive the forgiveness of sins from them, not from God Himself. The Bible is very clear over and over and over again that you MUST do this to be saved!
In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses.
In Luke 18:13, the publican beat his chest and cried out to God for mercy!
In Psalm 51, King David cries out to God to forgive him & blot out his transgressions.
In Psalm 32, the psalmist says he confesses his sin to the Lord and God forgave his sin.
The blessing is nowhere to be found in the Bible, nor is there any place in the Bible where someone gets converted by receiving the forgiveness of sins from someone else. People are always taught to call upon the name of the Lord and ask Him to forgive you. To turn to Him, not another person to forgive your sins for God.
Someone asked me once if Paul and I still bless each other. We do not. We both go to Jesus. We both walk with Him. We do confess our sins to each other, very often, and forgive each other. We do not say the words of the blessing, but just say “I forgive you.” We pray for each other when we sin against each other. We encourage one another to pray and confess our sins to God. We speak scripture and life to each other to remind each other of the gospel, what Jesus did for us, how we have the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin, and how much God loves us. The fact that Jesus is alive and is coming back is a daily conversation in our home. We seek to live, and move, and have our being in Him. We both want more of Jesus in our lives, and less of ourselves. We do not need a blessing from one another when we have Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, Himself! We have Jesus! He is with us! It is awesome!! We have His word written to us! There is so much power in His word and in prayer.
“What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!”
Would I give someone else a blessing? No, I would not. I would share that God loves them, Jesus died for them & rose again, and they can come to Christ to receive forgiveness of sins! But I would not give someone false assurance by “blessing” them. The problem with the blessing is that if someone just gets a blessing without going to Jesus Christ, their sins actually are not forgiven, even if they believe that they are. You must come to Christ yourself to be forgiven. It is not loving because if you give someone a blessing, and they really are not coming to Christ, then they will stay in bondage to sin. They will not be set free in Christ, as He intends to set them free. You must be saved on God’s terms, not on our own way. We do not get to come up with our own way to get to heaven, just because it is what feels good to us. This is very shaky ground. The word of God is solid and trustworthy.
Jesus is amazing and came to give us life and life abundantly. He came to set the captives free and free us from the power of sin! Walking with Christ is completely different than how I lived most of my life. Knowing my Jesus, my God and Savior, my Shepherd, my Father, has been the biggest blessing ever, ever, ever. There is no greater blessing than to know the one who created you, who loves you, who has a purpose for your life, who will lead and guide you, who you can trust completely, and who will save you for eternity.
In Heaven, all believers will be worshipping Jesus forever. We will be in awe and bow down and praise Him with all of our hearts! If someone has no interest in knowing Jesus now on this earth, why do you think you want to go to heaven? Heaven is all about Him.
I encourage you whether you are already a believer or not, to seek to know Christ more. Read the Bible and pray and ask God to show you who He is. He wants you to know Him. He created you to know Him, glorify Him, love Him, and live a life that He wants you to live! Live is so grand when you know God.
It just blows my mind that God has a purpose for my life. I never knew this my entire growing up years. I did not ever hear that I was made to know and glorify God. This is basic Christianity. The purpose of life. It is just the best to walk with Christ and live for eternity. I am free from the bondage of people pleasing, seeking constantly for something more in life, and living as a slave to sin. I am free to know, love and obey my loving Father in heaven. This is so exciting. You have to taste and see that the Lord is good!! How blessed is he who takes refuge in Him! He is amazing and worthy of all glory, honor, thanksgiving, and praise!
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