My New Life in Christ - Pastor Lubinda Kapuyi

LESSON #1: SALVATION

When you received Jesus Christ into your heart, you made the biggest decision of your life, yet you may not have fully understood what you did. We hope this lesson will explain to you what happened.

Teacher’s Notes: Introduction

“…he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:5).

Jesus is the “one and only Son” of God (John 3:16). As for us, we enter God’s family by adoption when we declare with our mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we get adopted into God’s family or in other terms, saved (Romans 10:9). This adoption is only possible by grace from God when one believes in Jesus. There is no need for us to work or bribe God with anything to be adopted (Ephesians 2:8-9).

We will talk more about the rights of an adopted child in future lessons, but as for now, I want you to know that for a child who is adopted into a new family, everything becomes new. The child needs to learn new manners that differ from those of the family from which he/she was adopted. This is what this lesson is about. You are going to learn how to conduct yourself in God’s family by putting off your old manners or ways of living and being renewed in the spirit of your mind, put on new ways of living which are in accordance with your new family in Christ (Ephesians 4:22-24).

The Two Spiritual Families in this World

The Family of Devil

Prophet of Baal – Courtesy of Lumo Project Films – www.lumoproject.com

The Family of God

Elijah, Prophet of the LORD God – Courtesy of Lumo Project Films – www.lumoproject.com

A family, according to the definition of Britannica, is “a group of persons united by ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, constituting a single household and interacting with each other in their respective social positions, usually those of spouses, parents, children, and siblings” (Alan John Barnard, family: kinship, Britannica, January 16, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/topic/family-kinship). As of 2025, the number of households reached approximately 2.19 billion (Helgi Library).

Though there is a huge number of households or families in this world, there are only two spiritual families in this world: God’s Family and the Devil’s Family. It is important to know how one enters or is adopted into the Devil’s Family or into God’s Family.

The Family of the Devil

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).

Sin came into this World through one man, Adam, and it spread to all men (Romans 5:12).

We are conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5).
Death came through sin, and it spread to all men (Romans 5:12; Genesis 2:17), and the fact that we die is evidence of that sin in us.
Evil character in us, including in young children, is evidence of the inherited sin in us (John 8:44). A young child does not need to go to school to learn how to hate someone because sin dwells in him.

We are born separated from God – outside God’s family.

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).
When man sinned, God sent him out of the Garden of Eden and placed angels and a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).
Because we are conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12), the truth is that no one who is born of a human father and mother is born into God’s family. Since there are only two spiritual families in this world, God’s and the Devil’s, our natural birth automatically places us in the Devil’s family.
We are born in sin (darkness) and totally separated from God (who is Light). We are born already owned by the Kingdom of Darkness, where falsehood, anger, stealing, prostitution, adultery, lying, corrupt talk, bitterness, hate, jealousy, and unforgiveness are a normal way of life (Ephesians 4:25-31).

The Payment for our Sin.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

The salary or payment for our sin is death. Death is categorized into physical death (a separation of your soul and spirit from the body) and hell (which is an eternal separation from God).
Sin and death are the realities for every person born to a man and woman. See Teacher’s notes below for a detailed examination of sin and death.

Sin and Death

Sin

Sin has basically two categories: (a) the objective sin that you inherit from Adam (Psalms 51:5; Romans 5:12) and (b) the subjective sin that you commit consciously, and this subjective sin may be broken down into categories of fornication, adultery, stealing, anger, lying, etc. Many people are conscious of their subjective sin and do not pay attention to the inherited objective sin in them.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” Romans 3:23-24).

When the Apostle Paul in Romans says that “all have sinned,” he is referring principally to the objective sin that we inherit through the first man, Adam. Subjectively, one can commit a sin and another man not. But objectively, we are all sinners before God through the first man, Adam, and we are made righteous through the second man, Jesus Christ (Romans 5:19). The first part of our salvation is “Justification.” To be justified is to be declared righteous before the judge, who is God himself. This justification is not in relation to your subjective sins, but rather to your inherited objective sin. There are so many repetitive subjective sins, and if justification or salvation depended on confessing each one of them, no one could be saved (Hebrews 10:11-14).

Death

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Genesis 2:16-17).

“…and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Death also has categories:

The physical death. Because your body is created from dust, it returns to the earth as it was, and your spirit returns to God who gave it. To return to dust is part of our curse as a result of sin.
The spiritual death. Because you are darkness and God is Light (1 John 1:5), you are eternally separated from God. You live in enmity with God (Romans 5:10), and the eternal destiny for all enemies of God (the faithless, the detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars) is the lake of fire, which is also referred to as the second death (Revelation 20:15; 21:8).

The Family of God (Through Christ)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Key Words in John 3:16:

God – God is the creator of all things. He created man in his own image, after His likeness (Genesis 1:26).

World – the world is a reference to all fallen human beings (Genesis 3), born of man and woman, conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), and practically belonging to the family of the devil (John 8:44) and living as enemies of God.

Love – God is Love (1 John 4:8), and He loves all fallen human beings (the world) – his enemies.

Gave – The payment for sin for all who are in the family of the darkness is death, and God, in his unconditional Love, offered his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die in the place of the sinner, a painful and shameful death on the cross (Isaiah 53). God’s love is not only emotional, but a practical, unconditional love for whoever would believe from among those who are in the family of darkness.

Only Son – Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. Through Jesus Christ, God is expanding his family in number of children by choosing, in his own mercy and grace, to adopt some of the children from the family of darkness (Ephesians 1:5).

“Whoever” – God does not obligate anyone to abandon the life of sin and darkness to be adopted as a Son of God. This is the verdict: Even in this adoption, which is by grace, many people who are still in the family of darkness chose not to accept being adopted into the family of God because they love the deeds of darkness. They hate to be in the family of light because the light of God’s Word will expose their deeds of darkness, which they are not ready to abandon (John 3:19-21).

“Believes” – the only condition to be adopted into God’s family, or to be born again, is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith that saves has two parts of confession:

Repentance from Sin After the conviction of the Holy Spirit concerning sin in one’s life (John 16:8), such a one must confess his sin in recognition that he or she is a sinner and lives as an enemy of God, and the consequence of that sin is his death (Romans 6:23). Jesus did “not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). If a person in the family of darkness is failing to recognize and confess his own sin before God, with the view of abandoning that sinful life, he cannot be saved or adopted into God’s family.
Confess Christ – To be adopted into the family of God or saved, one must confess with one’s mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in one’s heart that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and God, on the third day, raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

“In Him” – To be adopted into God’s family, one’s object of faith must be Christ, and not in one’s good works. Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who went up to pray in the temple demonstrates God’s rejection of those who trust in their own righteousness and reject the righteousness that comes from God (Luke 18:9-14). You can fast twice a week or give tithes of all that you get, but that’s not righteousness enough to save you or get you adopted into God’s family. Jesus Christ loved you enough to surrender his life on the cross for you. If you believe that you are not a sinner and you are doing good works enough to please God so that he can adopt you or save you, then you are practically declaring that Jesus Christ died on the cross for no purpose (Galatians 2:20-21).

“Perish” – Every person born in the family of darkness, if not adopted into God’s family, is destined for death (Romans 6:23). After the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, people will perish or go to hell, not because they are sinners, but because they refused to accept the love of God in Christ Jesus.

“Eternal Life” – When Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, God prevented them from reaching out to the tree of life to eat of its fruit and live forever (eternally in sin), and therefore, “the LORD God sent them out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which they were taken (Genesis 3:22-24).

It was God’s plan for man to live and fellowship with him eternally, but not in sin. In Christ Jesus, any sinner who is in the family of darkness has this great opportunity to be adopted into God’s family and spend eternity in fellowship with God in righteousness. Those who are in the family of darkness will spend eternity outside fellowship with God in hell, a perfect place for all enemies of God.

Teacher's Notes

Negotiating with God on Adoption or Salvation

In my work of evangelism, I have discovered that some people have a wrong understanding of the grace of God and how it applies to their salvation and adoption. I have heard people say that God knows that I am not perfect and that I am trying my best to live in righteousness every day. When I ask what they think if Jesus came today, if he would allow them to enter his Kingdom or not, the response is always, “God will analyze and balance out my good works in relation to my bad works, and by his grace, will decide to let me into his Kingdom.” The bad news is that God does not negotiate with anybody in matters of salvation or adoption into his kingdom. Salvation or adoption into God’s Kingdom and family is only by grace through faith in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9; John 14:6; Acts 4:12). As Jesus went through towns and villages, teaching and journeying to Jerusalem, he mentioned this part of people trying to negotiate entrance into the Kingdom of God at the last minute, after the door or opportunity to put faith in Christ is shut. Many will say:

“Lord, open the door for us. We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And Jesus, who gave them all the time on earth to repent but didn’t, will respond to them and say, “I do not know where you come from. I never knew you; depart from me, your workers of lawlessness.” (Luke 13:24-30; Matthew 7:21-23)?

I encourage you, my dear sister and brother, not to wait until the last minute to decide to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in your life. Nobody knows the day of his departure from this earth, and it is wise that while you are still alive, confess your sins and abandon the life of sin to accept God’s love in Christ Jesus.

If you are ready to make this decision right now and you don’t know how to pray or confess your sin and confess Christ into your life, then pray this prayer with me:

THE SINNER’S PRAYER

God, thank you for my life. Thank you for your Word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in my heart concerning my sin (John 16:8-9). I recognize that I am a sinner, conceived and born in sin (Psalm 51:5), and the penalty of my sin is death (Romans 6:23). Thank you, God, because you love me so much that you sent your only Son, Jesus Christ, to die in my place on the cross (John 3:16). For my sake, you made your Son, who knew no sin, to be sin, so that in Jesus Christ I may become righteous before you (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Today, I repent of my sin, and I confess Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of my life, and I believe in my heart that after he died for my sins, you raised him from the dead on the third day, and he lives eternally (Romans 10:9). Adopt me as your son today, through your Son Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of your will over my life (Ephesians 1:5).

In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

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