Welcome to Christian Forums! I pray that we will be a blessing to you, and that our Lord will use us to help you to understand more accurately your present relationship with God and to improve upon it.
Becoming a Christian begins with belief in Christ, and our faith in Christ grows as we carefully and prayerfully read the Scriptures on a daily basis and give God praise for what Christ did for us on the cross, and for the very many other things that He has done for us.
Faith in Christ is not mere intellectual accent to the truthfulness of the gospel—faith in Christ is living our lives in submission to Him as best we know how, including during times when our “faith” may be less strong that we would like it to be. When Christians focus on themselves and their faith more than they focus on Christ and what He has done for us, it is easy for them to become discouraged.
There is a very wrong and very harmful belief circulating amongst many Baptists today that living victoriously for Christ is impossible. We see this belief reflected in the posts in this thread that portray Paul as a sinner struggling unsuccessfully against temptations to sin. This very wrong belief comes especially from Romans 7:14-25 in which we find Paul writing in the rhetorical first person and present tense to dramatically portray the unregenerate Jew who delights in the Law of God after the inward man, but who finds himself behaving contrary to the Law, unable to keep it. Indeed, this unregenerate Jew says of himself,
14. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
15. For 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.
Any Jew, indeed, any man, who attempts to please God by keeping the Law is going to fail and fail and fail! The ability to please God comes only through faith in Christ, what He has done for us on the cross, and continuing in His word.
John 8:31. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
32. and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
33. They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”
34. Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
35. “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
36. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
Paul knew this promise, and he lived the life that Jesus promised for those who believe in Him and continue in His word. All too many Christians, however, like to believe that Paul lived a defeated Christian life just as they do. After all, such a belief does not require that they change their lifestyle and they can continue in the sins that they enjoy. They feel guilty at times because of those sins, but they find comfort in believing that Paul had the same problem with sin that they have. They believe in Christ on an intellectual level, but their lives betray a very shallow belief. They are saved, but what are they saved from? They live as though Christ came to forgive people of their sins but not to save them from their sins. They like to sweep under the rug the words spoken by an angel of the Lord to Joseph in Matthew 1:20-21,
20. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
21. “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
My precious brother in Christ, you believe in Christ. You have not lost your salvation. Read the Bible and take God at His word. Look to Him for strength and share with others what God has done for them in the person of His Son. I can remember a time many years ago when I was going through an exceedingly difficult time and I was so discouraged that I could barely get through the day, and the Lord brought into my path a man who very much needed to hear the gospel. I wanted to just ignore him, but with the very tiny bit of faith that I had, I opened my mouth and the Holy Spirit took over and the gospel poured out of my mouth with a burning passion and absolute confidence. As I heard the words coming forth out of my mouth, I was encouraged and strengthened, and the man with whom I shared the gospel believed it and was saved.
Pray for your father. Pray to God for your father’s faith to be strengthened. Let your Father see the truth of the gospel in your life.
People who believe that a Christian can lose his salvation without having committed actual apostasy are not Arminian in their belief.
(All quotations from the Scriptures are from the NASB, 1995 update.)
