Seven days on the path the apostles preached: grace, then repent, believe, be baptized by immersion, and remain.
About 10 minutes a day · 7 days
Aim
To receive salvation as God’s gift through His Son, and to take the first steps Scripture actually names — not a private prayer that skips the rest.
Open the week
This week is the short road beside the longer Foundations study “Grace, then the faithful walk.” Grace is the root. The apostles still preached a response. The church names it without apology: repent, accept Jesus as Savior, be baptized by immersion, and remain diligent until he returns. One passage a day. Do not turn the gift into wages, and do not turn the gift into a pillow.
Day 1: By grace, a gift
By grace you have been saved through faith. It is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Then verse 10: we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works God prepared beforehand. Grace is rescue of mortal people who were dead in trespasses. It is not a wage. It is also not permission to stay as we were. The gift creates a walk.
To talk about
- What, according to Paul, can no one boast in?
- How do verses 8–9 and verse 10 belong together?
Day 2: Repent, and be baptized
Peter has said God made Jesus Lord and Christ. They are cut to the heart and ask what to do. He answers: repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit — God’s power promised to those who obey. The first Christian sermon does not say “only pray a private prayer.” It says turn, and go into the water in Jesus’ name.
To talk about
- What do the people ask, and what two things does Peter tell them to do?
- Why would “repent” without “be baptized” be less than Peter preached that day?
Day 3: No other name
Salvation is found in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Accepting Jesus as Savior is not a vague spirituality. It is receiving the man God raised, the only begotten Son, the stone the builders rejected. Grace has a name. If we dilute this into “many paths,” we have left the apostles.
To talk about
- Why does Peter make the claim this exclusive?
- What would “accept Jesus as Savior” look like in Acts, not only in modern language?
Day 4: Buried with him
We were baptized into Christ Jesus — baptized into his death. We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Immersion pictures a grave and a rising. That is why this church teaches baptism by immersion. Sprinkling a forehead does not look like a burial. Baptism does not purchase grace. It joins a believer to the death and resurrection of God’s Son.
To talk about
- What does baptism join us to, in Paul’s sentences?
- Why is a burial in water a better picture than a few drops?
Day 5: Down into the water
Philip opens Isaiah and preaches Jesus. They come to water. The eunuch says, “What prevents me from being baptized?” They both go down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptizes him. They come up out of the water. There is enough water to go down into. That is not a damp fingertip on an infant who cannot believe. Faith, water, down, up. Stay with the story.
To talk about
- What has to be in place before the eunuch asks about baptism?
- What does “went down into the water” make hard to treat as sprinkling?
Day 6: Remain diligent
Show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Remaining diligent until Christ’s return is not earning the gift. It is refusing to drop it. The race has a finish. The church names that finish: until he comes.
To talk about
- What is the opposite of sluggishness here?
- How does “until the end” keep salvation from being only a moment in the past?
Day 7: Add to your faith
Make every effort to add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. If these are yours and increasing, you will not be ineffective. Continued obedience of faith is how a person stays in the relationship grace began. The entrance into the eternal kingdom is still ahead (1:11). That kingdom is on the earth when Christ returns — not a soul already arrived.
To talk about
- Which quality in the list is thinnest in you right now?
- How can diligence “add” without turning the gospel into self-rescue?
Handle with care
Verses people often read through a later tradition. Stay with the text.
“Pray this prayer and you are done”
Acts 2 and Romans 6 preach repent, believe, and be baptized. A private formula that skips the water is not the apostles’ first-steps path. That is not this church’s teaching.
Faith without baptism, or baptism without faith
Acts joins them. Infant sprinkling as gospel baptism is not this church’s teaching. Neither is treating immersion as a work that purchases grace. We are saved by grace. We are then buried with Christ in the water he commanded.
Once saved, always saved as a pillow
Hebrews and Peter both press diligence. Grace is a gift; it is not a lock that makes unfaithfulness irrelevant. Remain. That is this church’s teaching.
This week
- Day 1: Thank the Father out loud that salvation is a gift.
- Day 2: If you have never turned, turn. Tell someone in the body.
- Day 3: Say the name of Jesus as Savior, not as a slogan.
- Day 4: Read Romans 6:3–4 as a picture. Have you been buried?
- Day 5: If you believe and have not been immersed, talk with an elder.
- Day 6: Name one sluggish habit to drop until he comes.
- Day 7: Pick one quality from 2 Peter 1:5–7 to add this month.
Close
Grace first. Then a road: turn, trust the name, go down into the water, and keep walking until he appears. For the longer walk through the same path, open Foundations: Grace, then the faithful walk.