Once a person comes to the place of seeing that he has problems, whether it's guilt, shame, fear, a combination of these or something else, we need to call him to Jesus. In the Gospel Jesus offers Himself as the one who can solve those problems and free that person. But what does it mean to call someone to Jesus? This is where the term 'faith' comes into play. It's important to be able to clearly explain what faith is. Here's one way of doing that.
There are three parts to faith. First, there is information. Faith in Jesus is impossible without some information. There are things to know about Jesus - who He is and what He has done - that a person needs to know. So, for one example, a person needs to know that Jesus offers to solve those problems of guilt, shame and fear. He is the Savior.
Second, a person needs to agree that what he's been told about Jesus is true. There are many, many people who have information about Jesus, things that they heard growing up or the like. But they do not accept this information as true, as facts. So, they might agree that there was this fellow named Jesus who made lots of claims. But is He someone who can fix my life? Is He the Savior? No! So, there is information, but then there is the agreement that that information is true, accurate.
But even this is not enough. A person also needs to entrust himself to the Jesus that he now knows about and accepts as factual. To entrust oneself is separate from knowing and accepting something as true. Jesus calls for people to entrust themselves, body and soul, into His care. This is about depending on Him to do what He has claimed and to depend on Him only. Without this there is no faith.
So, there's information about Jesus and His claims, agreement that the information is true and then entrusting oneself to Jesus based on that information.
To be sure, a saving faith is a growing faith. It's a process. We learn how to entrust more and more of ourselves to Him as we get to know more about Him. But there must be a first step where, to the extent a person understands what it means, he places himself in the care of Jesus.
However, as important as faith is it is incomplete without repentance. That's for next time.