Salvation – Tree of Life Ministries

God created Adam and Eve to be like Himself as triune beings (Genesis 2:27), because they were His children. God is Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit. Humans are soul (mind, will, and emotions), body, and spirit. As His children they were given freedom of choice to make decisions—sometimes called free agency, because God does not want His children to respond to Him like robots, but rather to love Him by their own free will and choice.

GOD’S GRACE

Heavenly Father placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden—the Garden of Eden, and extravagantly provided for them. This relationship was God’s original plan for Adam and Eve, based on His radical love and grace—unmerited, unearned favor. Adam and Eve did not, nor could not, earn anything that God gave to them. It was all gifts!

Heavenly Father was like proud, elated, loving parents of a newborn baby. The parents prepared a beautiful nursery with adorable clothing and fun little infant toys. No expense was spared, or effort too much for their baby. These beautiful items were all gifts given to the baby by the parents because of the greatness of their unconditional love. The baby did nothing, nor could do anything in even the tiniest degree, to earn these items.

Nothing the baby does, or does not do, can diminish or increase the parents’ love for her. They love her solely because she is their child, and for no other reason. The baby is hopelessly dependent on her parents for all her needs and wants. It is impossible for her to earn them.

So in this type of relationship, Heavenly Father, Adam, and Eve enjoyed wonderful family fellowship in the garden.

ADAM FALLS FROM GRACE

God told Adam and Eve they could eat the fruit from all the trees in the garden, which included the Tree of Life, but forbade them to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why? Because the knowledge of good and evil is Law, and the Law always punishes everyone who tries to obey it but doesn’t. And the punishment for disobeying the Law is always death (Romans 6:23):

For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!).
Romans 4:15 NLT

Heavenly Father warned them that the consequences for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would be immediate death (Genesis 2:17).

Think about this—what hurts you more, when a person harms you or when a person harms your child? Every loving parent will quickly answer, “When a person harms my child.” Well, Satan vehemently hated God and wanted to do what would hurt Him the most—and still does, so he caused Adam and Eve to suffer and die. He calculatedly seduced Eve with his lies, deceiving her into believing that Heavenly Father was withholding something good and valuable from her; something that she needed and should desire—the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Eve was deceived by Satan and ate the forbidden fruit, and then gave it to her husband to eat too (Genesis 3:6-7). After Adam ate that fruit they suffered spiritual death because the Holy Spirit left them, which meant they were separated from God. Their body and soul continued to live in a degenerated state of being, which eventually led to the death of their physical body too.

God is life (John 1:4, 10:10, 11:25, 14:6; Acts 3:15), which is why when the Holy Spirit (Genesis 2:7) left Adam and Eve the seed of death began to germinate within them.

The good news is that God had a plan to save Adam and Eve and their descendants, because none of this caught Heavenly Father by surprise. He knew that by giving humans free-agency they would inevitably sin. God had a solid plan to save humanity from before the world was even created:

All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelation 13:8 NKJV

God planned that He would be born as a human baby boy to be humans’ covenant representative, suffer the consequences of their sin, and conquer death (Isaiah 59:15-17):

God planned that He would be born as a human baby boy to be humans’ covenant representative, suffer the consequences of their sin, and conquer death.
1 Corinthians 15:21-22

ADAM’S SIN ENSLAVED ALL HUMANS

As the first man and father, Adam had headship—or authority—over the human race. His sin brought the curse of death—in all its destructive forms—on his descendants (Genesis 3:14-19; Romans 6:23). Consequently, every descendant of Adam was—and still is—born with a sin-nature, because of separation from the indwelling Holy Spirit, which is the presence of God. The curse set in motion by Adam’s sin resulted in far too many types of suffering to list here:

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
Romans 5:12 NLT

Suffice it to say, if it’s something bad in your life it’s rooted in the work of the devil, and if it’s good it’s a gift from God:

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
James 1:17 NLT

We desperately need the redemptive work—salvation—of Christ to rescue us from the curse set in motion by Adam’s sin. You must understand that people are not sinners because they sin. They sin because they are sinners, literally born with a sin-nature. Before we receive salvation from Jesus we are just as much slaves in bondage to sin as the Israelites were slaves in bondage to Egypt, but being in bondage to sin doesn’t negate personal responsibility to do good, or accountability when you do bad. Before a person is saved they are obligated to obey the Law, but because they were born in bondage to sin they fight a war in their own mind (Romans 7:14-25) between the Law and sin (good versus evil).

SALVATION AND NEW BIRTH

When you accept Jesus as your Saviour, your sin-nature is reborn and you are filled with the Holy Spirit. You now have two spirits—yours and the Holy Spirit. Like the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with Noah, and circumcision a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is God’s sign of your marriage covenant with Him, similar to a wedding ring:

And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago
Ephesians 1:13-14 NLT

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is received by faith when you believe and confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Savior and accept His redemptive work. You may or may not recognize a spiritual inner shift, but whether or not you do, if your prayer is sincere then you are born-again!

THE PRAYER OF SALVATION

The Prayer of Salvation can be said in private or with another person:

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for suffering for my sins and dying for me on the cross. I believe that your blood washes me clean of every sin—past, present, and future. You are my Lord and my Savior, now and forever. I believe that You arose from the dead and that You are alive today. Because of your finished work I am a deeply loved, highly favored, and richly blessed child of God, heaven is my home, and I will live with you forever. Thank you for giving me eternal life, and filling me with the Holy Spirit and Your peace and joy! Amen.

[NOTE: I’ve known people who have been over zealous about leading an unsaved person in the Prayer of Salvation. It’s as if they are trying to trick their loved ones into getting saved by telling them to “repeat after me”. The person is then expected to blindly parrot a few words at a time until the prayer is completely recited. This is not only wrong to do, it is ineffective. The Prayer of Salvation is not a magic incantation. It is a spiritual transformation that can only occur when a person sincerely prays because they personally believe in Jesus and personally desire to be born-again. God cannot be tricked. He knows perfectly every thought and intention in a person’s heart (Matthew 9:4; Hebrews 4:22; 1 John 3:2; Psalm 94:11, 139:2, 23-24). Receiving salvation is a spiritual transformation based on a spiritual law that is just as real as physical laws. What you believe activates this spiritual law just as an apple falling from a tree activates the Law of Gravity.]

The instant you said “Amen” to the Prayer of Salvation, the Lord breathed the Holy Spirit—eternal life—into your spirit, just as He did into the disciples immediately after His resurrection and to Adam when he was created:

“That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! ‘Peace be with you,’ he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again he said, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:19-23).'”
“Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person (Genesis 2:7).”

You are a new creation!:

Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.

“You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.

“For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. As the Scriptures say,

“People are like grass;

their beauty is like a flower in the field.

The grass withers and the flower fades.

But the word of the Lord remains forever.”
“And that word is the Good News that was preached to you
1 Peter :21-25

The Holy Spirit now lives in you. Of course, there is only one true God, but He is a great mystery—three divine Beings in one:

Father
Son (Jesus Christ)
Holy Spirit

When the Word says the Holy Spirit lives in you, it means the fullness of God lives in you—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you’ve been born-again than you can’t get more of God in you, because you already have all of Him:

Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it . . . When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you . . . Jesus replied, ‘All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them
John 14:9-11, 20, 23 NLT

Here are some of the things that the Holy Spirit will do for you as your life partner and constant companion:

Teach you all truth
Comfort you
Warn you of danger
Give you peace and joy
Tell you about things that will happen in the future
Tell you what to say when ministering

THE LOCAL CHURCH AND WATER BAPTISM

Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives
Romans 6:3-4 NLT

We were made for relationship. God intends for people to belong to a church family. So it’s important that you find a local full-gospel Christian church to fellowship with. Look for a church that emphasizes Jesus and the grace of God, but make it a matter of prayer. It’s a good idea to visit several full-gospel churches in your area and ask God to show you where you belong.

The local church is a place where you will be spiritually fed, have fellowship, be equipped for your calling from God, and trained in the use of spiritual gifts, which is all essential to the transformation of your soul. The church structure and preaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit is God’s plan for the perfecting of His children (Ephesians 4:11-12; 1 Corinthians 1:21).

Once you’ve found a church, you’ll want to talk to the pastor about water baptism, because no marriage is legal without witnesses. Water baptism is a public witness of your covenant with Jesus. The immersion in water symbolizes the death of your sin-nature with Jesus on the cross and the rising out of the water symbolizes your resurrection—or new birth—with Jesus.

Even Jesus—who never sinned—was baptized in water. He taught that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being “born” (meaning baptized) in water and the (Holy) Spirit—which happens when you accept Jesus as your Savior (John 3:5):

Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk him out of it. ‘I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,’ he said, ‘so why are you coming to me?’

“But Jesus said, ‘It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.’ So John agreed to baptize him.

“After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy
Matthew 3:13-17 NLT

I strongly encourage you to participate in a full-gospel local church. If you can’t find a local church where you feel like you belong, here are a few online churches that I follow:

GraceRevOnline.com

My personal testimony: After a regular Sunday service at my home church in January 2023, I was standing in the airlock of the front lobby waiting for my ride. A woman I don’t know came up to me, pointed to my coat, and said, “I just wanted to tell you that the coat is an important part of the armor of God.”

I was wearing an especially beautiful lemon-green, oversized maxi coat that I frequently get compliments on.

“This coat was a special gift from my children,” I responded.

“I just wanted to tell you that the coat is an important part of the armor of God,” she repeated.

I realized that she was not complimenting my coat, and wondered if she had a Word of Knowledge. I was in the process of writing this book and had already finished the section on the armor of God. So I knew that Paul didn’t mention anything about a coat as part of the armor of God.

“What does the coat symbolize?” I asked.

She had no idea, and then repeated her statement for a third time. Although she didn’t directly state it I believe that God gave her that Word for me.

Upon doing a little research, I happily discovered that the coat—cloak is an important part of the armor of God (Isaiah 59:14-20)!

God could have given me this Word directly, but He chose to speak to me through another Christian. Experiences like this remind us that there are no Lone Rangers in the Kingdom of God.

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