Why is it so hard to beileve in Jesus Christ?????????

Countryangel707 said:

I do believe im pretty sure

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I'm disconcerted by people who seem to be suggesting that you should find certainty in your own certainty. You'll never find certainty by looking into yourself, or your own feelings. Your feelings are fickle, fleeting, and frail.

You do trust in Christ, that's what faith is.

But if you try and find certainty by examining your own feelings, how you feel, or how "sincere" you think you are you will always be disappointed. Because we are unreliable. We are failing. We are unstable and sinful. You and I will always fail, we will always struggle, we will always be insufficient. That's why we can't look at ourselves or to how we feel.

We have to, instead, turn to the Word of Christ, the Gospel itself. Christ crucified and risen from the dead, your sins freely forgiven. Yes, your sins have been forgiven, that's what the Gospel says. To you.

Have you ever been baptized Countryangel? If you have then you have absolute assurance in Christ. For by our baptism we have been washed clean of all our unrighteousness, born again by the Holy Spirit, having received the Holy Spirit, become crucified and dead with Christ, and alive together with Him to new life.

Here is what the Scriptures say,

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." - Acts 2:38

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." - Romans 6:3-11

"As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." - Galatians 3:27

"He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." - Titus 3:5

"And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ," - 1 Peter 3:21

In your baptism you belong to Christ, and if Christ's you are God's. You have God the Father as your Father. You are a daughter of God, and a joint-heir with Christ Jesus your Lord. You can therefore boldly declare that you are baptized, and there is no power above or below the earth or on the earth that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ.

Am I saying you're not saved if you haven't been baptized? Not at all. But look to the promises which God has attached to Baptism in Scripture, look not to the internal things of your heart, but to the external things of God, to His Word and His Sacraments. There is Christ, always, without question. For God has promised these things, and He is reliable and unfailing, Faithful even when we are faithless.

-CryptoLutheran

Countryangel707 said:

I do believe im pretty sure

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Do you believe enough to let go and let God have all of you, your fears, your identity, your pleasures, all of you? Do you believe enough to have a relationship with the living God? Do you believe enough to allow Him to live in you and through you? Cause if you do, your answer would not be "pretty sure"

ViaCrucis said:

I'm disconcerted by people who seem to be suggesting that you should find certainty in your own certainty. You'll never find certainty by looking into yourself, or your own feelings. Your feelings are fickle, fleeting, and frail.

You do trust in Christ, that's what faith is.

But if you try and find certainty by examining your own feelings, how you feel, or how "sincere" you think you are you will always be disappointed. Because we are unreliable. We are failing. We are unstable and sinful. You and I will always fail, we will always struggle, we will always be insufficient. That's why we can't look at ourselves or to how we feel.

We have to, instead, turn to the Word of Christ, the Gospel itself. Christ crucified and risen from the dead, your sins freely forgiven. Yes, your sins have been forgiven, that's what the Gospel says. To you.

Have you ever been baptized Countryangel? If you have then you have absolute assurance in Christ. For by our baptism we have been washed clean of all our unrighteousness, born again by the Holy Spirit, having received the Holy Spirit, become crucified and dead with Christ, and alive together with Him to new life.

Here is what the Scriptures say,

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." - Acts 2:38

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." - Romans 6:3-11

"As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." - Galatians 3:27

"He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." - Titus 3:5

"And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ," - 1 Peter 3:21

In your baptism you belong to Christ, and if Christ's you are God's. You have God the Father as your Father. You are a daughter of God, and a joint-heir with Christ Jesus your Lord. You can therefore boldly declare that you are baptized, and there is no power above or below the earth or on the earth that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ.

Am I saying you're not saved if you haven't been baptized? Not at all. But look to the promises which God has attached to Baptism in Scripture, look not to the internal things of your heart, but to the external things of God, to His Word and His Sacraments. There is Christ, always, without question. For God has promised these things, and He is reliable and unfailing, Faithful even when we are faithless.

-CryptoLutheran

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Shame on your for posting all those scriptures out of context and trying to make them say water Baptism brings salvation:

in Acts 2:38 the King James bible reads correctly:
"Repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the holy ghost."

the word for there could also be translated "because of", the Greek word is the word eis, and does not always mean"in order to receive"

for example, "I want to jail FOR stealing. " does not mean I went to jail in order to get stealing.

In one of the Gospels Jesus said the people repented at (the greek word eis) the preaching of Jonah.

The Holy Spirit very carefully and exactly selected the words that He used. There is a Greek preposition hina which means "in order to," or "so that." That is not the preposition used in Acts 2:38. That Greek preposition hina is used in the New Testament according to Young's Analytical Concordance and translated one time albeit, one time because, one time so as, twice as so that, and 542 times as simply that and to the intent one time and to the intent that one time. So, if Peter had meant "baptized that ye may receive the remission of sins," he would have used that Greek preposition. The Greek terms are very exact.

Romans 6:3-5 tell very clearly the intent of baptism, its form and meaning. It is a burial, a planting (not a birth): "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." So baptism pictures the burial and the resurrection of Christ and our participation in His death and burial. We count the old man dead and buried. We are raised up to live a new life because we have a new heart. Baptism thus is a picture, a ceremony with a definite meaning.

Notice also that twice in verse five it is called "the likeness of his death," and "the likeness of his resurrection."

Now does "baptized into Jesus Christ" mean that baptism puts us in Christ? Again your trouble is in the little preposition into. It is the translation of the Greek wordeis, used some 1800 hundred times in the New testament. It is an indefinite preposition of reference. it is variously translated in, at, unto, toward, et cetra. the simplest meaning is "referring to," or "with reference to." So, Romans 6:3, "...that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized referring to Jesus Christ were baptized referring to his death."

And in Galatians 3:27 the meaning simply is, "For as many of you as have been baptized referring to Christ [or pointing to Christ] have put on Christ," that is, have publicly and symbolically acknowledged Christ.

You see, we have an exact copy of that use of the word in 1 Corinthians 10:1,2, "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea," And that "baptized unto Moses" again uses the little preposition eis, so the Bible says, "baptized eis Jesus Christ," "baptized eis his death," and baptized eis Moses." So if baptism puts the penitent sinner into Christ, then all the nation Israel were put into Moses. If the one is literally put into, then the other is literally put into. In this inspired Scripture, God uses exactly the same language.

But if you take the way the word is used throughout the New Testament and as an indefinite preposition of reference, then the Israelites were baptized crossing the Red Sea, surrounded by the cloud and the sea, were baptized with reference to Moses and his leadership just as a Christian is baptized with reference to Moses and his leadership just as a Christian is baptized with reference to Jesus Christ, pointing to His death and resurrection. We ought to use terms like the Bible uses them and we ought to mean what the Bible means. and to take it that these Scriptures contradict the other plain statement, that one who believes in Christ is already saved and has no condemnation, is misusing the Word of God. No Scripture ever contradicts another Scripture, if it be rightly interpreted.

in reference to the verses in 2 Peter :But that is not all this Scripture says, and its meaning is clear if you note its context. There, speaking of the word of God which Christ preached through the Spirit in Noah before the flood, 1 Peter 3:20, 21 says, "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

It is obviously only a figure of speech to say that Noah and eight souls were saved by water. And then we should not be surprised in verse 21 that the Scripture says, "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us." Here baptism is simply mentioned as a figure, a symbol, of salvation. It pictures the sinner, the old man dead and now buried, and the new person risen to live in Christ. Why avoid the clear statement that just as you might say figuratively, Noah and his family were saved by water, so, "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us?" Baptism is a figure, a symbol, a picture of salvation. It does not save. It declares salvation.

And the next verse is evidently intended to safeguard us on the matter so we would not misunderstand the Scripture, for that same verse goes on to say, "(not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." So baptism does not put away the filth of this old carnal nature. It is simply "the answer of a good conscious toward God." And the saving that we get is "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," after His death on the cross, which is pictured in baptism. This is "the answer of a good conscious," a conscience already purged, before one is baptized.

Our Catholic friends say that when Jesus gave the Lord's Supper and He said, "This is my body," He meant that the bread actually becomes the body of Christ and the cup actually contains the blood of Christ literally, and that these are a new sacrifice. That is unscriptural. but to make baptism a saving ordinance by misinterpreting 1 Peter 3:21 is the same sin, the same perversion of Scripture.

Old Testament saints were saved by faith without baptism
the thief on the cross was saved without baptism

http://www.ovrlnd.com/FalseDoctrine/Refuting_baptismal_Regen.html

Also in Titus 3:5 the correct translation and reading is "by the washing of regeneration"
Which is talking about when one places their faith in Christ for salvation and has their sins washed away by the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Water Baptism is not mentioned anywhere in he whole book of Titus.

Countryangel707 said:

Id like to. The concept of believing is kinda hard for me to understand. I do know though that I believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day. I believe that it is only through Him that we may have eternal life.

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I'm gonna see if I can find the study I did on belief and see if that helps, it's kind of long but very complete. Actually, this is about how we should Love the Lord, I think that it might help, but it is long and so I will send it in conversation.

Countryangel707 said:

Id like to. The concept of believing is kinda hard for me to understand. I do know though that I believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day. I believe that it is only through Him that we may have eternal life.

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In today’s world, believing in God means believing he exists, but this is not what it means to believe on Jesus in the Bible. To believe in someone means to trust their abilities or their character. For example, If I said I believe in you to pick me up from school, it would mean I have faith in your abilities. In the same way, we must depend on or have faith or believe in Jesus and his ability to save us. This is another reason why good works or being religious cannot save us, because we must have faith in Jesus’ ability and not our own. If you are depending upon your own goodness to save you, then by definition you are not believing on Jesus!”

You must personally make the decision to receive Christ by placing your faith (trusting and depending) in Christ.This is how you receive Jesus Christ. You do NOT receive Christ by being religious or “good.” Will you receive Jesus today so that you can “know that ye have eternal life”? The only way for you to know that you have eternal life is by receiving Jesus on God’s terms and not your own. It is not possible for you to know that you have eternal life if your eternal life is dependent upon your good works or how religious you are. This is not how eternal life is attained.

1 John 5:11-13 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

Countryangel707 said:

I do believe that Jesus can save and that is the only way to Heaven .

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I don't think you understand.

It's not enough to have mental agreement that Jesus Christ can save and is the only way to heaven, you have to actually make a decision in your heart and mind to TRUST and DEPEND upon Jesus Christ to save you.

For example, I can stare at a parachute and exclaim "I believe this parachute can save me"

Or I can go an put the parachute on.

The 2nd example is how you are saved, you are not saved by believing mental facts about Jesus, you saved by actually putting your trust and faith in Jesus Christ.

Acts 16:31 Believe ON the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved"

You are a new Christian, CountryAngel, and have expressed faith; I don't think we need to ask for more along those lines. It has been my endeavor to spur you into action, but something is holding you back. It is difficult assessing and feeding someone on-line like this, but it is my firm belief that God will bless any genuine efforts.
CountryAngel, you were asked if you've been baptized...if you already answered forgive me for asking again, but were you? It is God's command and perhaps that is what you lack at this point. Eagerly seek now to follow Jesus. When you do this you shall enjoy the feeling of safety and assurance of salvation and enjoy learning about God and what a relationship with God is. Follow Him in all joy and gratitude.
I saw you mention a fear of being left behind. I want you to know most Christian Churches do not hold to such a teaching. More later, I want to keep this short. Again, were you baptized?

Jordan Kurecki said:

Shame on your for posting all those scriptures out of context and trying to make them say water Baptism brings salvation:

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This isn't a debate forum, if you want to debate the theology of Baptism that belongs in a place like General Theology.

I understand your Baptist tradition's position on Baptism, as a Lutheran I disagree with it and indeed believe what I have said is explicitly biblical and in keeping with what the Christian faith has always taught. It is the historic teaching and belief of Christians over the last two thousand years and so I won't feel ashamed for expressing Christian teaching. If you want to debate this, and the relevant Scriptures, that should be done in a more appropriate forum like General Theology.

There's actually a thread already in GT concerning this topic here: http://www.christianforums.com/threads/is-water-baptism-necessary-for-salvation.7912729/

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

This isn't a debate forum, if you want to debate the theology of Baptism that belongs in a place like General Theology.

I understand your Baptist tradition's position on Baptism, as a Lutheran I disagree with it and indeed believe what I have said is explicitly biblical and in keeping with what the Christian faith has always taught. It is the historic teaching and belief of Christians over the last two thousand years and so I won't feel ashamed for expressing Christian teaching. If you want to debate this, and the relevant Scriptures, that should be done in a more appropriate forum like General Theology.

There's actually a thread already in GT concerning this topic here: http://www.christianforums.com/threads/is-water-baptism-necessary-for-salvation.7912729/

-CryptoLutheran

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if you really want to use the "historic church teaching" argument we could prove RCC theology from the writings of the early church fathers... But many of the early church fathers were heretics, and so were a lot of so called "churches" down through the ages. Just because a bunch of people who claimed the name of Christ taught Baptismal Regeneration does not mean that is what the "Christian faith" has always taught. Jesus did not teach baptismal regeneration, nor does the new testament.

Salvation is by faith alone. Not faith plus baptism. I will not let you lead astray others here.

I am so tired of Lutherans claiming that salvation is by faith but then saying Baptism is also necessary. Water Baptism is a work. You can deny that till your blue in the face but that doesn't change it. It's double talk to say you believe in salvation by faith but then add Baptism

throughfireytrial said:

You are a new Christian, CountryAngel, and have expressed faith; I don't think we need to ask for more along those lines. It has been my endeavor to spur you into action, but something is holding you back. It is difficult assessing and feeding someone on-line like this, but it is my firm belief that God will bless any genuine efforts.
CountryAngel, you were asked if you've been baptized...if you already answered forgive me for asking again, but were you? It is God's command and perhaps that is what you lack at this point. Eagerly seek now to follow Jesus. When you do this you shall enjoy the feeling of safety and assurance of salvation and enjoy learning about God and what a relationship with God is. Follow Him in all joy and gratitude.
I saw you mention a fear of being left behind. I want you to know most Christian Churches do not hold to such a teaching. More later, I want to keep this short. Again, were you baptized?

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I want to add CountryAngel that your thread here is under the Exploring Christianity forum. To get the greatest benefit from your thread then please do not feel obligated to follow one opinion...listen and weigh them...you have no obligations at this point to choose anyone's view in the end and no one should take offense should you discard their opinion. You are exploring and I see you are seeking a Christian Church.
A word about left behind since you indicate it frightens you...we do not get our answers about God from movies and books, you must do it the good old fashioned way, by reading the Bible. The absolute truth on end times can be found in the words of Jesus in Matthew 24 and 25 and there it says nothing about 2 comings of Christ, (left behind times shall we say) only 1 second coming when He shall return to judge the world. Concern yourself with the events of those days instead. Left-Behinders pervert the Word of God. One must not add or subtract to the Word as Revelation tells us. So, read and find these facts for yourself. You will find it a great joy as He opens your heart and mind to Truth!
You can learn a life lesson from this experience if you haven't already in other walks of your life and that is you need a good understanding of God's Word to properly make a decision. This is why my chief endeavor was to prod you into reading. Don't accept doctrine and church practices which are not supported by Scripture. The teaching of baptism is under the great commission--the commission Jesus issued to His apostles after He rose from the dead (Matthew 28:16-20). I pray you read it; those 4 verses alone should cheer you and comfort you...see vs 20!
Still left wondering, I had assumed you were baptized but...were you?

Oh, I am so happy to hear that you have already been baptize!!!
Now just move forward in faith by reading Scripture so that you can be wide in making your choice of a church home!!
Praising the Lord for you and your faith...be at peace and read the Scripture!

throughfireytrial said:

Oh, I am so happy to hear that you have already been baptize!!!
Now just move forward in faith by reading Scripture so that you can be wide in making your choice of a church home!!
Praising the Lord for you and your faith...be at peace and read the Scripture!

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That is be *wise*, not wide!