It works for you, so I approve.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Left wingers in USA seem to be more imperialist fascists than right wingers nowadays
- Thread starter Lars
- Start date
ElishaElijah
Return
The thief on the cross with Jesus did nothing to deserve or earn eternal life yet he received it by believing in Jesus Christ.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
So it's just about belief?
ElishaElijah
Return
It’s about trust because even the devil believes, yet can’t be saved. Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan he was essentially saying that God isn’t telling you the truth and what God says cant be trusted. Well God proved that wrong and He can be trusted and that’s what it takes to be saved. Trusting what God says and that He is faithful to His promises.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
So it's not about being a good person or doing good works or any of that, as another poster pointed out.
It's just about believing.
ElishaElijah
Return
Being saved is not about any good works or any of that, no amount of good works can be done to earn a place in Heaven because it’s a gift. The good works are done out of a renewed heart after salvation is received. The fruit of the Spirit that a person shows are the evidence that you are born again and done out of love and not out of duty.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
So it all boils down to belief/trust.
ElishaElijah
Return
Yes, this:
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Regardless of what some might say, of course it's not just about believing. That approach I call "rocking-chair religion"-- just sit back and have some politically-correct thoughts and you're "saved!". Gee, just how convenient is that!
Over and over again in the Gospel there are demands, not just suggestions, that what Jesus taught was much more demanding than just having p.c. thoughts about Jesus. To put it another way, that approach is to just talk-the-talk and not walk-the-walk, which Jesus labeled as "hypocrisy". That's like getting in through the "wide-gate", thus not the "narrow gate" that Jesus said was absolutely necessary.
Gandhi noted this hypocrisy when he noticed over and over again that so many who had that those who believed in "once saved, always saved" concept, which is actually denounced in the Gospel, acted like nothing they did mattered, therefore were all so often quite nasty with no respect for anything or anyone that was not just like them. Indeed, I've seen this far too often myself, sorry to say.
Jesus main message was to love God and love one another, and that word love, "agape", is an active noun in Koine Greek. IOW, one doesn't just have "agape"-- one lives "agape"-- no shortcuts.
ElishaElijah
Return
That’s a perverted view and not the Gospel at all.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
This was more along my lines of understanding back when I considered myself a Christian.
I never understood the "just believe" thing.
ElishaElijah
Return
How many good things and how much love will get a person into Heaven? How good do you have to be?
ElishaElijah
Return
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now 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. For 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. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:1-23 ESV
Romans 6:1-23 ESV