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regularly be telling the lost about their Saviour, Jesus Christ. They will love others self-sacrificially and in a holy, truthful way.
This is the most accurate part of your post because it's consistent with what Jesus taught. He didn't teach that other stuff about naughty words and drugs.
But, you can't really say that you're telling the lost about their savior and loving others, while you're also busy working for money. This is precisely why Jesus said that we cannot work for God and money at the same time without cheating on one or the other. He said God is one master and money is the other master . He said we would love one and despise the other (Matthew 6:24). He said we should not allow worry about even the most basic necessities like food and clothing stop us from stepping out in faith (Matthew 6:25-31). This is precisely why you brought up the "salvation by works" argument.
If I had been saying the same kind of stuff you say about naughty language and reading the Bible regularly, you never would have mentioned salvation by works, even though those things are works that are dependent on the choices we make. We choose to use naughty words and we choose to read our Bible; those are things we do. You don't have a problem with those works, but you definitely had a problem with my comments about chasing money.
Obviously, humans must do something to demonstrate that they want to be saved; even you would acknowledge this because otherwise all humanity would be saved by default. So, what must we humans do to demonstrate that we do want salvation? We must be born again. What does that look like?
When Jesus said, "follow me", his followers left their jobs, forsook all, and started preaching the gospel full time (Matthew 4:18-22, Luke 5:10-11, Luke 5:27-28) . They lived together (Acts 2:44-45). They traveled together (Luke 8:1). They worked together and shared all things in common (Acts 4:32-34).
Certainly, that would be a more radical life-style change than simply refraining from naughty words. This change was so intense, so radical that the worldly people around them referred to it as "turning the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). You don't turn the world upside down by continuing to serve Caesar while professing with your lips that Jesus is Lord.
Being born again isn't just some ritual. It's not some religious formula. It's a complete change of lifestyle that can only be achieved by listening to the master and obeying him (1 Peter 1:23). Peter says we're born again by the word of God. The Bible says Jesus is the word of God (Revelation 19:30, John 1:14). Jesus says that his words will judge us (John 12:48). This effort of yours to make Jesus' teachings some kind of secondary or lesser issue is not consistent with what Jesus himself said about his own teachings. He said, "If you obey my teachings, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)
From the moment of our physical birth we're indoctrinated into a system where money makes the world go round. We learn that our value is found in how much money we can make. If someone is not willing to pay, then you don't work. That's the system. Yes, we do a bit of volunteer work here and there or give to charity now and then, but the bottom line is that we never forsake the worldly system; we always go back to serving mammon because hey, we gotta put food on the table, right? We believe this so strongly because this is what we're born into.
But Jesus is saying we must be born again into a new set of values where money does not make the world go round and the value of life is not based on how much we can accumulate or how much payment we can haggle for our time and efforts. We must learn all over again what it means to be citizens in the kingdom of Heaven. This change is so revolutionary and so fundamental that we cannot do it while still hanging on to our old life. We must let go of all that we learned in the system. It really is like becoming a child again, going to a new school and learning new values.
This is what the teachings of Jesus represent; freedom from a lesser, perverse system. This is why it is so important to obey him. His teachings are the values of the kingdom of Heaven. We learn what it means to be a citizen through the exercise of those values. It can be scary to let go of everything we've learned as children of the worldly system, so much so that most of us believe we'd die if we did not continue serving mammon and that the world would crumble into chaos. But is that really true? Would humanity really die if we started working for love instead of money? This is why Jesus talked about freedom. This fear enslaves us and his solution for breaking those chains was to obey his teachings.
No amount of religious jargon about naughty words can be a substitute for that freedom.
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