Congratulations on your salvation!

You did it! You made the right choice! The smart choice! The wise choice! The humble choice! The choice that ensured your salvation! So congratulations on your salvation! Now you get to go to heaven, unlike the majority of people out there, who are going to suffer in fire for eternity instead because they haven’t made the same good choice that you did.

It seems that you have something inside of you — something that so many other sinners don’t have inside of them — which made you able to make this good choice. Obviously, right? Otherwise, if they had it inside of them to make the same choice to get saved, they would have, wouldn’t they? Or maybe it’s something that’s inside of them that’s not inside of you which makes sure they aren’t able to make that smart choice to get saved. Or maybe it’s a combination of both. Maybe they just love their sin too much, while you’re just naturally more righteous than they are and don’t love sin as much as they do, so you were able to make the wise choice while they just can’t. Either way, you did it and they weren’t able to, so now you can brag about being able to make the right choice while nearly everyone else hasn’t been able to. (But don’t — even if you deserve it, because you’re naturally better than them in that you’re able to make the right choice while they just aren’t able to, it’s important to put on an outward display of humility — outward appearances are one of the most important aspects of Christianity, after all.) I mean, it’s too bad that those other sinners aren’t able to realize and reject their sin, and accept what Christ did for them, since some of them are your family members and friends, but they just aren’t as naturally humble as you are, are they, so what possible chance did they ever have anyway? Besides, I reckon there’s no point in worrying about something that you can’t do anything about. And if God can’t help them without them choosing to help themselves by making the right choice, how could you possibly help them, right?

And it’s a good thing you did make this choice, because Jesus’ death for our sins, along with His subsequent entombment and resurrection, accomplished absolutely nothing on its own. So without you to make that choice on top of what He did, He would have failed to save you and you would have been out of luck. I mean, sure, He completed the first step, and that first step was, of course, necessary for your salvation. But without you to make that final — equally crucial — step, you never would have gotten saved, because God just can’t (or at least won’t) help you if you don’t decide to help yourself by helping the process along through choosing to believe what it is you believed for your salvation.

And what a belief it was! You realized that Jesus did everything necessary for you and me to be saved. I mean, He obviously didn’t, because if He did, you would have been saved without having to make any choice at all, so it was also necessary for you to choose to believe that “He did everything necessary for you to be saved” to be saved. Which also means that you were required to choose to believe a lie in order to be saved, since there was an additional step necessary (your choice to believe) even though Jesus supposedly did everything necessary to be saved, but if choosing to believe a lie can’t help save us, what can? (Obviously not Jesus, since He wasn’t able to save you without your additional contribution of a good decision to believe the lie.) You also chose to believe that Jesus took care of all of our sins through His death, entombment, and resurrection. Although, again, we also know that this isn’t actually true either, since our sins are apparently still a problem for us if we don’t choose to believe that He took care of all of our sins, but again, what’s wrong with choosing to believe a lie if it’s necessary to be believed in order to be saved?

So, again, congratulations on your salvation! Oh, and I know you were told that Christianity isn’t a religion, but now that you’ve been saved, make sure that you give 10% of your income to the local church you decide to attend, and be sure you attend local church meetings as often as possible as well. Oh, and you’d also certainly best avoid anything the leaders of that church or denomination decide are sinful, especially when it comes to matters of the human body and sexuality (particularly when it comes to matters of sexuality that aren’t actually discussed in Scripture). There are also a large number of other rules, many unwritten (you couldn’t possibly have expected God to let us know everything He wanted us to know through Scripture, now, could you?), but you’ll figure them out. Or at least you’d better — and relatively quickly — if you don’t want to get disfellowshipped, or at least gossiped heavily about.

Welcome to the family!