When approaching salvation, don't listen to the worldly view that salvation is about your cigarettes, beer and drugs. In truth, those things don't have a jot to do with whether you're a good person.
So put that thought away, right here and now.
What you will need is to do a short prayer to the Lord, between just you and God, confessing your faith. Surely, you have to repent of sins, but at this early juncture, are you even clear about what is really sin or not? Don't think cigarettes are as awful as raping a child or killing someone.
Salvation, like the road of life, is a journey. Now there are some that counter that, saying the change in the person is "quick", immediate, and entire. Suddenly, you'll want to own horses and sing bluegrass music, was what was implied by one of my former ministry leaders. I didn't believe that then, and I don't believe it now. And of course, he seemed to doubt that I was saved, until I said one thing.
"There's nothing I could have done to have earned this grace. It was freely given to me by God without my earning. That's why I loved the Lord so much, that He would do that for me."
In truth, I didn't and probably don't still deserve that spot in heaven. But the Lord gave it to me anyway. That's the gift of grace, that the Lord has forgiven you. They call it being "born again" because they do expect that you'll change more and more as you share your life with the Lord. It's like being made over as a new person, though you might wear the same clothes, and otherwise appear the same.
But your new smile, that new feeling of gratitude that fills your heart when you realize the immensity of the gift of salvation? You might feel the impulse to share that with people around you, and then the world begins to see that indeed, you are really a saved, born again, child of God.
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