As a young boy, I walked forward during an invitation at our Baptist church and made a public declaration of my faith. In the ensuing years, I followed the Lord but then fell away in my teens and early 20s. At age 29, I had a supernatural encounter with the Lord in the middle of the night and have never turned back. 

When that encounter took place the most important thing to me was being forgiven. Nothing else mattered. I wanted more than anything to be restored to the Lord whom I had ignored. That experience had me rekindle my faith in the God who forgives our sins and began the journey of my rekindled faith that has brought me to this present moment.

As Paul wrote about Jews and Gentiles coming to the Lord, he said, “God saved you when you believed” (Ephesians 2:8). The word “when” is important to understand. Our belief was a moment that we chose to believe in Jesus as our Savior and receive all the benefits of our salvation.

My Greek lexicon describes that belief as something specific. It is “a strong and welcomed conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God.”

That moment of personal belief was mentioned again in Ephesians 3:6, “Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus.” Both Jews and Gentiles become one in Christ through the exercise of their faith in the Lord.

When Jesus was speaking to His Jewish disciples, he told them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  Entering into the new covenant and its blessings requires an exercise of our will declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. It is not automatic. We must first say yes to the Lord to enter into His blessings, Jew and Gentile alike.

At the start of our journey of faith or at a time when we repent of a season of backsliding, our greatest gift in those moments is to understand we have been forgiven.  We have complicated our faith, adding issues that make little difference in our lives or to God. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. To be found by Him and restored from our lost condition is the greatest of all spiritual gifts. It is available to all who call upon His name, no matter who they are and what background they come from.