“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heard that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

We’ve been talking quite a bit about this at church lately.  What it’s basically saying is that because Jesus died for our sins that if you believe in him that you are saved and will go to heaven.

All my life I learned that if you did something bad that you might go to Hell.  This lead me to think that I was always trying to earn my salvation.  What I’m learning is that this is a very Catholic (or other) belief. 

What’s really interesting about it is that if it were true, that we were always trying to earn our way into heaven throughout our life, why did Jesus suffer and die for our sins?