I'm not saved...Hello all, I'm new here & am trying to get saved.
Thanks for recognizing that you are not saved. You are trying to live a life of a saved person--WITHOUT being saved. You are doomed to fail all the time. You don't have the life & resurrection power of the Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ.
You can't save yourself. You can try to be saved all your life & it still won't save you. You have tried now for 30 years & get are getting the same results. It's call insanity.
Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The
definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over & over again, but expecting different results.”
This is what Jesus said in John 8:31-36.
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you continue in My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will KNOW the truth & the truth will set you FREE.”
33They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants & have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say we will be set free?”
34Jesus replied, “Truly, truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a SLAVE TO SIN. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Until you repent & turn from trying to be saved & turn to Christ to save you, crying out to Him & confessing Him as your Lord--asking him for forgiveness & the power to overcome sin--you will remain caught in the binding ropes & cords of sin. (Proverbs 5:22)
My desire to sin gets worse the longer I try not to sin.
The Apostle Paul described this in his own life. It appears you have a sincere desire to be set free from the slavery of lust & inappropriate content addiction. Yet you don't have Jesus in your life. You have not died to yourself & taken up the cross & followed Jesus. You love inappropriate content more than you love God.
Romans 7:7-24 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.”
8But sin, taking opportunity thru the commandment, produced in me COVETING OF EVERY KIND; for apart from the Law sin
is dead.
9I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive & I died & this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;
11for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, DECEIVED ME & through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy & the commandment is holy & righteous & good.
13Therefore did that which is good become
a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become UTTERLY SINFUL!
14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into BONDAGE TO SIN.
15For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I
would like to
do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
16But if I do the very thing I do not want
to do, I agree with the Law,
confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good
is not.
19For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, WAGING WAR against the law of my mind & making me a PRISONER of the law of sin which is in my members.
24WRETCHED MAN that I am! Who will set me FREE from the body of this DEATH? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
Matthew 11:25-30 At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven & earth, that You have hidden these things from
the wise & intelligent & have revealed them to children. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight."
27“All things have been handed over to Me by My Father & no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son & anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal
Him.
28“Come TO ME--all who are weary & heavily burdened & I will give you rest. Take My YOKE UPON YOU & LEARN FROM ME, for I am gentle & humble in heart & YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy & My burden is light.”
Very briefly, here's my history. I grew up going to church at a very young age. I was baptized at 16, and i had always been taught that as long as i believed in Jesus, the burial, the resurrection, and the Trinity, i was saved.
I was the same. I believed intellectually THE FACTS OF THE GOSPEL but that doesn't save anyone. Jesus said this in John 5:38-40:
You do not have His word continuing (abiding, remaining) in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. Yet it is these that testify about Me & yet you refuse to come to Me so that you may have life.
They have really preached about repentance & I am convinced that I have deceived myself as to whether or not I am saved. In the last few months, I have desperately tried to break this habitual sin of lust & failed every time. I have done everything i can think of to break this....addiction.
I agree with you; you have deceived yourself. You have done everything but the one thing that will bring you freedom: deny yourself, of going your own way in life, trying to save your life that you must lose in order to turn to Christ to save you & gain the life of Christ. The martyred missionary, Jim Elliott, said it so well:
"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, in order to gain that which he cannot lose."
Luke 17:32/Mark 8:35 Remember Lot’s wife! For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake & for the gospel will save it.
I cant function some days without inappropriate content, even dreaming about it while i sleep. I want so much to be saved, but I don't know what I need to do at this point. Thanks for any advice.
Proverbs 5:20-23 For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman & be embraced in the arms of a seductress?
For the ways of man
are before the eyes of the Lord & He considers all his paths.
22His own iniquities entrap the wicked
man & he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction & in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
915. Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin