Its all entwined.So as I said we are saved because of our faith. We do good works because we love God not because we expect our works to save us. You could do lots of good works but if you reject Jesus, its game over.
I hear this so often and its so fake.
No where but no where are we instructed to folow an organization. Adhere to one or submit to one.Recommending someone find a good church is fake? How so?
No where but no where are we instructed to folow an organization. Adhere to one or submit to one.
The very thinking that church is a place is fake tradition.
It has remade my thinking in this question, to realize that my God is not the wimpy god who sits around waiting for people's decision to "accept" him. He does not kiss the rear end of "free will".
God is the one who decides whom to save, and he is the one who does the saving. This is what the Bible refers to as regeneration, or being born again, becoming a new creation --it is God in us, and is not the result of our effort nor strength of will, nor the integrity of our heart, nor the size of our intellect. It does not depend on us. But it will inevitably produce evidences, and so there is indeed a need for concerted effort on our part to obey. Yet even that is the work of God, and is of no value if it is only us doing it.
"Deciding to be saved", "Accepting Christ", or whatever words you want to use there, are not the cause of salvation, but the result. Depend on God to accomplish what he set out to do from the foundation of the earth. The reason he created us is for his own sake --not so much for ours, though it consumes us and fulfills us.
Faith comes by hearing
Because when youhear the word of God you then know what it is you are to DO.
If you dont do it you wont be saved.
God sent the saviour
He said
This is my belived son
Listen to him.
Im pretty sure if a cop tells you you to listen to his partner.. He means DO AS HE Instructs you.
Not just hear and ignore.
Its not a command.. How are they the church in order to meet..?In the book of Acts we find the disciples meeting regularly to continue in doctrine, the breaking of bread, and prayers. Hebrews states that we should not forsake the assembly of ourselves together. According to church history the church has met together corporately since the earliest of times.
When your hear the word of God then you know you are to repent of doing works of sinSo what am I supposed to do 3:00 pm this Tuesday? Where in scripture is it going to tell me this? Yea I can try following all the general instructions and still mess up the details... then the whole thing falls apart like a deck of cards in a hurricane.
You are talking about an enigma that you feel that you have all figured out because you are very proud of your wisdom. I have never met two Christians who agree on exactly how they should follow God.
If God is waiting for us to properly interpret scripture before saving us then possibly all of us are DAMNED!
Its not a command.. How are they the church in order to meet..?
Because they are people who repented got baptised and recieved the Holy spirit.
Who then go on to Obey the lord Jesus
So very many attend meetibgs but continue to live in disobedience.
Advicing some one to go and be among disobedient believers is sending them to the worse place.
Want your faith to grow. Believe Jesus and begin to Do as he says to your heart.
Sure..its good.Did not the disciples gather for fellowship when Jesus was on earth?
Sure..its good.
But its not a law and its only good if all present are living in obedience to Christ.if not it is the worst place to direct someone too.
Direct people to JESUS. Dont follow the body
Follow the head.
It is not quite compatible with the "God does all the saving" hypothesis. Your description sounds more like God chooses out of a pool of possibles, than that he made each of us for his purposes. Nor does he choose out the better put-together creatures.So what does it mean when the regeneration and "born again" status is not happening even if we think we want it?
Does that mean that God actually hates us? He might be saying "yea that loser is not my best work. I'm just going to let him rot. I'd rather save this other guy over here." That doesn't sound like something he'd say but it is compatible with the "God does all the saving" hypothesis.
I think the problem is the "easy believerism" notion that all a person has to do is to go up the front in a meeting and receive Christ, without doing anything else. He believes that his decision for Christ is conversion or regeneration. In actual fact, it is not. Receiving Christ is just the starting point. If a person says he or she is regenerated and there is no evidence of it except attending church on Sundays and appearing religious, then how can he say he is regenerated?It is not quite compatible with the "God does all the saving" hypothesis. Your description sounds more like God chooses out of a pool of possibles, than that he made each of us for his purposes. Nor does he choose out the better put-together creatures.
But for all that, what it sounds like isn't really a test of truth. If God says, (and he does), that regeneration is not of the will of man, of God, then it is not.
I got saved and begin calling myself a Christian 2 years ago and finally got baptized a year ago. Even over the last 2 years I have been battling unbelief in God. How can I learn and have trust and believe in God? I think this is due to not going Church as a child, having a narcissist parent that is a unbeliever installing negative about Jesus in me as a teen and dabbing into cults, new age and occult in the past.
Absolute holiness or morality in itself does not save us. Only true conversion can save us and that is something that we cannot do ourselves, no matter how strong our profession of Christianity is, or how many times we "accept" Christ, go to church, do Christian activities, even preach the Gospel and pastor churches, speak in tongues, prophesy, try to cast out demons and all the other stuff that Christians do.
I don't think that a lot of people fully realize that just accepting Christ is not conversion or salvation. Christ has to accept us, and that can only come through conversion - and conversion is not automatic. It is a definite work of the Holy Spirit and there is a real and definite transformation in the heart and spirit of a believer. Just saying the sinner's prayer and putting on the Christian "badge" is not enough and a lot of people who do that and no more will find themselves in hell.
Believing the Gospel and turning to Christ is just the first step. Then the believer earnestly seeks God through prayer and the Word until there is the definite experience of conversion and there is absolute and definite evidence that the conversion to Christ has taken place. For God to do this in a person, He has to see clearly that the believer is fully committed to Jesus Christ as total and complete Lord of his life and conduct, otherwise He won't do it, and the professing believer will find the gates of Heaven locked against him. When that believer, in the judgment, asks Christ why he can't come in to Heaven, the Lord will say to him, "You were very religious all right, but you did not give Me your whole heart!"
This is why the gate to eternal life is very narrow, and few there are who find it. I would say that at least 50% of all church goers are just religious and unconverted, because they have depended on their profession of Christianity, and not pressed into God to be fully converted to Christ; therefore they have one foot in the Christian religion and the other foot still firmly planted in the world. And the Scripture says that a friend of the world is no friend of Christ.
I can't express this enough: that true conversion is not something we can do, no matter how religious we are in the Christian faith. We can be utterly and absolutely religious in every respect, but if we are not converted to Christ, we are lost! And God is the only one who can do it in us. And it doesn't happen until the religious person seeks God with all his heart and soul for it and stays waiting on God until it happens. It may have to be sought with tears and pleading until it happens. But when it happens, the truly converted Christian knows all about it, because he knows that God has genuinely transformed him in his heart and spirit.
Then, and only then, does he hunger and thirst after total holiness, without which, he will never see the Lord.
Many, who are actually unconverted and shy away from the strictness of holiness that God requires, use legalism as an excuse for why they think they don't have to be strict about their personal holiness, and use it as an excuse to keep their favourite lust or covetousness.
Get hold of and read John Bunyan's "Grace Abounding To The Chief of Sinners". He accepted Christ, and it took him eight whole years before he received assurance of salvation.According to your gospel, people like me will never make it to heaven. I've given my life to Jesus as much as I know how, and have tried my best and given my all to give up sin, but the truth is, I like my sin, and no amount of prayer, fasting, church, devotion, bible reading has ever stopped that. Do I try? All the time, but all the time I fail. I have sought God and Asked him to please deliver me, and change my heart to love and like the things he loves and likes, and to hate the things he hates. I came here looking for encouragement to continue walking the Christian faith, but I see there is no point actually. All the rules one must follow, and then there is the sin that still remains. Jesus saves us from sin, not in it...but why has never saved me? OH well. I like my lust, but I know the bible speaks against it, so I try to obey it...But I fail all the time. I doubt God will ever convert me. I have been at this for 15 years, faithfully....and I can't get any help. Not even from God. I asked God to deliver me from my sins that have control, and change my heart and make me hate them. I'm tired of buying drugs and then tossing them out. I wish it would just go away, but I can never overcome that desire. God must hate me. He must be waiting for me to prove myself and give up my sin. Well....God...I never asked to be born. I just arrived. But I did ask for you to change my heart and life....give me new desires, and power to live for him. But nope. All I get is sin, and more sin. Sin controls my life. It always has, even when I don't want it to, it does.
I have trouble accepting that I am free from sin, when actually, I was never free, nor experinced that freedom, even though I believed it. I'm not going to fake it. I tried it. It didn't work for me. Good luck, I hope it works out better for most of you guys.
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