You were close with the "trust" idea. Paul describes saving faith in Romans 4 comparing it to Abraham's faith in the promise of God and goes on to say, "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."
Saving faith involves not working for your salvation but rather trust God to provide it apart from issues of performance. But to many a sect God would say, "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it." Isa 30:15
In addition whenever the gospel is preached in the Bible it speaks of Jesus being Lord. It's not just referring to his deity anymore than "Lord" in "Lord God" is referring to God's deity, but rather the fact that we are instructed to comply with his commands. Jesus said, "Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" To call Jesus "Lord" is to pledge our allegiance to do what he says. That is a condition for salvation. "If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Rom 10:9,10
However as salvation is not conditioned upon works, the pledge of allegiance to Christ is not the same as doing what he says in every instances, but rather involves the intention to do so. Intention is not a work, it's an attitude. Faith is not a work, it's an attitude. Salvation is not conditioned upon religious ceremony such as water baptism, not good works, but rather attitudes.
Good instruction here. Faith always involves repentance from the old life of sin, and then to follow our rightful Lord - Christ Jesus.
Acts 20 (WEB)
Bolding mine 20 I didn’t shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house,
21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks
repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus.
This is the New Life and is represented in Baptism
Romans 6:4 (WEB)
4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life...
20 For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22 But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 12 (WEB)
1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
It is by this repentant faith commitment to Christ that we receive the Spirit of Christ to empower our faith, resulting in the New Life
John 7 (NIV)
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
John 4
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a
spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
See also Romans 8
This is no different than what Christ commanded of those who believe in him, which is to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him.
Luke 9 (WEB)
23 He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.
24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same will save it.
25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?
26 For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed, when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels.
Matthew 28 (WEB)
19 Go, and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”Amen.
How do we follow Him? Since we died to the old self, we now live a new life of Love just as Lord Jesus commands of us, and with himself as an example for us to follow.
