King David had his friend Uriah killed so he could have his wife. David already had a number of wives. Yet, God said King David was a man after His own heart. Acts 13:22 – “After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’” What does this say about salvation? God does not look at one’s past; we can be saved regardless of what we have done.

Let us assume you invited a friend to church who had only been a few times in his life. It was a tremendous sermon on eternal life with God. There was an altar call and he came forward to be saved. He had been told the penalty of sin was death and separation from God for all eternity and he did not want that to happen. The preacher asked them to say a simple prayer and then told them according to John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Also he was told from Luke 11:9 – 10 – “ So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” If he would just believe in Christ he would be saved. So he did.

After a few days the emotion wore off and he continued to live just as he always had. He did stop swearing and for a while stopped watching pornography on the Internet. One Sunday he happened to listen to Dr. Charles Stanley who stated that once saved he would always be saved regardless. John 6:37 – “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” Dr. Stanley gives additional Scripture and he thinks he is “good to go”.
A few days later he goes to a bar with a number of employees and drinks too much and ends up committing adultery. He was glad he had listened to Dr. Stanley or he would be in serious trouble with God. However, King David did the very same thing and God was still true to him.

One day he opens his Bible and it comes up Matthew 7:21 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” He turns a few pages and up comes Luke 13:25 – 27 – “Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’”

Now he begins to have doubts and he thinks about it for a few days and then opens his Bible again. It just opens to II Peter 2:21 – “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.” He is starting to wonder what this all means. Again he opens the Bible and he sees Hebrew 5:9 – “and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” He thinks maybe he wasn’t saved because if he were he would want to obey him and he hadn’t. He then remembers the reason God said King David had a godly heart was because: “he will do everything I want him to do.” So he flips his Bible a few pages and reads I Peter 3:21 – “and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” He thinks if he would have been baptized his life would have changed. So he calls the church and makes arrangements to be baptized.

A few days later he opens his Bible and he just happens to see I John 5:3 – 5 – “In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” Now he is starting to understand. It takes more than just believing that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died that we might be saved. If we wanted to be truly saved we must be obedient and stop living as the world lives and live as Jesus taught us to live. All of the mistakes King David made he was always repentant, he never made a major decision without prayer and he was obedient in all things.

He now begins studying his Bible and learns from Matthew 7:18 – 20 – “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” He studied more and found that there were fruits of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22 – 23 – “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” He decided these are things he should be praying about and receiving if he wanted to have a real close relationship with Christ. He again turned his Bible and reads: Mark 12:30 – 31 – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. ‘The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

By now there was no doubt in his mind that he would spend eternity with God and Christ. He was not perfect and he did not have to work his way to heaven but he had a repentant heart and he was obedient to God’s commands that he love God with all of his might and others as his self. He then started looking for ways to please God and be kind to others who he met. Every chance he had he would tell them about what Christ had done in his life.

The moral of this story is: it takes more than just believing; it takes continual repenting and obeying.