Salvation in a moment versus moment-by-moment motives

Bob8102 said:

What must I do to be saved?

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Well .....first ....stop doubting. I am not sure exactly what you are struggling with in terms of the Gospel message but, what I do know is if someone's understanding is on shaky ground, doubts will certainly creep up causing one to struggle in their walk with Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Sometimes we need to be reminded how Jesus Christ of Nazareth set us up to succeed before He ascended. He gave us His " Helper" aka His Holy Spirit. His Holy Spirit dwells in the believer as He promised when He said :

'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.'"

This is His Holy Spirit. This is not an in one day and out the next day promise. That being said, we constantly do " quench " His Holy Spirit in many ways. This may be what you are experiencing. Paul described it here:

1 Thessalonians 5:16–22
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil."

In conclusion, as I stated in the first line of my post...stop doubting. Understand that His Holy Spirit is Him, God in the flesh as One always dwelling in the believer. Start with a clean slate with no doubt. You will soon find this burden of uncertainty lifted when you trust in Him fully.
Be blessed.

Bob8102 said:

I have struggled with the gospel for over fifty years. It is as if I am just recently realizing that the Christian life is impossible without the Holy Spirit.

On the one hand, one can be saved in a moment. OTOH, one must take up one’s cross daily and those who persevere to the end will be saved.

Moment-by-moment motives matter. If one lives for Christ moment-by-moment, the indication is that one is saved. If one lives for self moment-by-moment, indications are that one is NOT saved.

I figure that one has to trust Christ and the Holy Spirit moment-by-moment to help one live for Christ instead of for self. If one mostly lets up from this quest, then apparently one is not saved. On the one hand, one can be saved in a moment. OTOH, one must relinquish self and trust God moment-by-moment from then on.

This salvation-in-a-moment versus moment-by-moment motives thing is a supernatural paradox. There are lots of paradoxes that have to do with the supernatural realm, that have to do with the reality of God.

I have figured that if I can only have a moment of real salvation, then I am set. Then I am Christ’s no matter what. There might be a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit from then on, till I die, but I am going to heaven no matter what. Since my mother died in 2011, I have striven to experience this moment of real salvation.

Just this morning, I was thinking about how one must live for Christ, moment-by-moment, instead of for self, moment-by-moment. And how one must keep looking up at Christ and the Holy Spirit to accomplish that. Realizing that, there were moments this morning wherein I asked Christ and the Spirit to help me live for Christ, instead of for self, moment-by-moment. But then I thought about having to keep this quest up, moment-by-moment, on an on-going basis. I thought, I am not going to be “able” to keep that up. Then I figured that, by default, I just live for self, moment-by-moment. So, I tend to figure, with my wavering faith, that I am not saved.

What must I do to be saved?

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Ministers of Satan — 2 Cor 11:14-15 – Grace Evangelical Society

False teachers emphasize good works.
Let me repeat that.
False teachers emphasize good works.
Listen to Paul:

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds (2 Cor 11:14-15).

Satan’s ministers disguise themselves as “servants of righteousness.”

Christendom is awash in false gospels. The primary characteristic of a false gospel is that it requires you to do good works to be eternally saved. It rejects the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work. It rejects His free gift. It rejects His mercy. It rejects the one condition of salvation, which is to believe in Jesus.

Bob8102 said:

Thank you, Maria Billingsly and d Taylor! d Taylor, you said the one condition of salvation is to believe in Jesus. Isn't the one condition of salvation to SURRENDER to Jesus?

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How many times does God need to say it in The Bible for you to believe it.

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
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John 3:14,15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
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John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
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John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is
condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God.
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John 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
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John 5:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
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John 6: 27,28,29 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
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John 6:47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believe in Me has everlasting life.
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John 11:25,26,27
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
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John 20:31
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Bob8102 said:

Thank you, Maria Billingsly and d Taylor! d Taylor, you said the one condition of salvation is to believe in Jesus. Isn't the one condition of salvation to SURRENDER to Jesus?

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Actually Love, the Agape type, comes first.

Bob8102 said:

one can be saved in a moment.

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One turns from self and one's sins and gets forgiven and adopted as a child of God. Because one has trusted in Jesus >

"we who first trusted in Christ" > in Ephesians 1:12

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." (1 Corinthians 6:17)

Bob8102 said:

I figure that one has to trust Christ and the Holy Spirit moment-by-moment to help one live for Christ instead of for self.

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Then comes learning and discovering and correction.

We need to ***grow*** in Jesus to become successful in obeying Him . . . more and more maturely.

"Therefore submit to God." (in James 4:7)

So, I would say - - - there can be "surrender". But also there needs to become the submissive relating with our Father >

"for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

Bob8102 said:

Based on Isaiah 45:22, this morning, at 6, I prayed the following. "Lord Jesus, I turn to You to be saved, for you are God and there is no other." I understand since that moment that I am saved.

The OCD experts note that people with Religious OCD may keep "jumping for the carrot" by giving their lives to Christ again and again. But, they say, these "jumps" only lead to fleeting assurance and they strengthen the next wave of doubt. Based on expert statements and experience, I can say that my current assurance of salvation will be fleeting and that the next wave of doubt will be strong. But I think I can now say to my OCD, "Ephesians 1:13." And to my realization that my faith wavers, I can say "James 1:17."

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Bob, you are looking in the wrong place for assurance. Assurance will not be found in "You." Focus you mind on what Jesus did for you when He died on the cross. I think of the nails that were used to nail Jesus to the cross as my sins, and then His blood covered them. Just like the 3rd verse of my favorite hymn, "It Is Well with My Soul" which is My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but tho whole is nailed to the cross and I bear them no more Praise the Lord Praise the Lord Oh my soul.

Think of when He was nailed to that cross that your sins were nailed there also, and His blood covered them so that God does not see them anymore. God says that He will remember our sins no more.

Romans 10:13 says "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I have heard preachers use that verse many times at the close of a sermon and then ask people to say a prayer to be saved. For many years I was confused about how just saying a prayer "in Jesus' name" would save someone. I did that many times thinking I would be saved, but the assurance would last for a day or 2, then I would be saying the prayer again hoping to find an assurance that would give me a lasting peace, but that never happened.

I was living almost daily in a state of fear & misery, thinking that I would never know that God had heard my prayer and had truly saved me. There was a missing link, and I was desperate to find it, but regardless of all my trying to believe & struggling with doubt, fear, & misery that missing link was not to be found anytime soon.

Bob, after years of struggling, I found that missing link when, out of a sense of hopeless desperation, I gave up on all my "trying to believe," and asked God to show me how to believe. Then I opened a bible to the Gospel of John and started reading from chapter 1 verse 1. Bob, that was the first time I had ever opened a bible outside of church, and when God saw that I had turned from "myself" to Him through His word, His Holy Spirit stepped in and became that "missing link."

By the time I had read through chapter 6, I had my answer, which was that I needed to look at the finished work of Jesus on the cross as the means of my salvation, and not to look at me. In other words, I needed to focus my trust or my confidence in or to rely on what Jesus had already done for me on the cross. He convinced me to trust in the cross, not in my prayer, or in anything that "I" had done or could do. Just simply rely on the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and leave it up to Him.

Back in Romans 10: 13 where it says that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, I found that if I looked at the next verse, verse 14, it says "And how shall they call on Him in whom thy have not believed, and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher."

That says to me that before we call on His name we must first "believe" or trust or put our confidence in His finished work on the cross where he paid the penalty for our sin, in full, which also suggests two possible outcomes of someone calling on the name of the Lord for salvation:

1. Someone hears a preacher say that if they will call on the name of the Lord to be saved that they will not spend eternity in hell, and of course no one wants to go to hell so they say a prayer that the preacher tells them to say so they will be "saved." But, the are trusting the preacher & in their prayer; not in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and therefore they are not saved.

2. Someone hears the truth of the Gospel and when they hear that they are sinners who need to be forgiven, and hear that Jesus died on the cross to pay for their sin, and then they believe that message, and they want Jesus to forgive their sin, then that person calls out to the Lord for salvation. That person is trusting in the gospel message; not in their prayer or in the preacher. Actually, I think that a person is born again & saved the moment he/she "believes" the gospel message, and in their heart they want the forgiveness that only Jesus can give them, and that the act of calling out to the Lord is evidence of that person "believing." Otherwise why would someone call out to the Lord for salvation unless he/she "believed" the Lord would save them except for the person who "believes" the preacher and trusts in their prayer. I'm sure some posters here will attack me for saying that, but it's my thinking on the matter.

Bob, I said all of that to emphasize that you should focus your "believing" on Jesus' work on the cross, and not on yourself.

Hope this makes sense to you.

Regards,

John