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| Subject: Re: Automatic forgiveness of sins? | |
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Author: CRM Moderator |
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Date Posted: 21:26:16 09/16/06 Sat In reply to: Sandy 's message, "Automatic forgiveness of sins?" on 08:50:09 09/05/06 Tue (We welcome any further thoughts from our readers on this subject...please respond below. Thank you and God bless.) Hello, To briefly answer your questions, there is no such thing as, "Jesus as a loophole". When a person receives Jesus Christ as his/her own Savior, that person becomes HIS-- His sheep, His child and a member of the Body of Christ. They are born again of His Spirit. The Lord knows His own. He also knows those who are merely "professors" of a faith in Him and who are not saved. The Lord says that a tree is known by its fruit. To those false followers, He will say to them, "I never knew you." and in Mark 7:6, " This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." God knows the heart of a person and one cannot simply say, "Jesus is my Savior" and presto -- they are on their way to Heaven. Easy beliefism is not scriptural for it is with the heart that man believes. The Gospel is simple-- and one can only come to Christ by grace through faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." And the bible says that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. One must believe FROM THE HEART that Jesus paid the price for their sins upon the cross and believe that He rose again. In order to be saved, your stepdaughter must acknowledge that she cannot save herself--that her sins have separated her from God and that she is on her way to hell without Christ Jesus. One cannot have Christ as a "loophole"-- He is both Savior and Lord or He is nothing at all. Faith and repentance go hand in hand. Repentance is turning from sin and faith is turning to Christ. So once a person receives Christ by faith, repentance and yielding to God is the fruit in the life of the Believer-- for it is the Holy Spirit working within the TRUE Believer a new life created in Christ Jesus. (Ezekiel 11:19-20; Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10) We cannot live the Christian life apart from His Spirit. The Lord Jesus says, "Apart from me, ye can do nothing." He is the Vine and we are the branches. Our works do not save us, nor keep us saved for we are saved by the Blood of the Lord Jesus and we are kept by His power. It is through His power that we can live the Christian life. Christians are commanded to avoid the very appearance of evil, to refrain from sinning and to fight the good fight of faith. But on our own, this is impossible-- one must be born again in order to live the Christian life and it is not us but Christ who lives in us, working in us-- giving us the victory. Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: A true Christian understands that our life is so brief here on earth and our lives should bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus, our Savior. If I may use an example, our life is like standing on a large beach and picking up one grain of sand-- that one grain of sand is our lifetime on earth in comparison to the eternity that awaits us. The Lord Jesus told us that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. It is only by His grace that we can do anything. True Christians will not be judged for our sins that we commit-- for our sins are forgiven and washed away because of what Jesus did for us upon the cross...but someday, our works that we do for Him will be tried in the fire-- some will come forth as gold and others will burn as the chaff. There is no condemnation for the True Christian. But I must say that a TRUE Christian will never view the Lord Jesus as a "loophole" but rather as the blessed "Savior and Lord" who gave His life for us. We love Him because He first loved us. Heaven will be Heaven because He is there. There are a many articles on our website that will further help in this area. A few are: The First Steps To Blessing I AM The Vine-- Please read our commentary at the end of the article. The Law and Grace Blessings To You, In Christ Jesus, CRM ---------------------------------------- ORIGINAL: > I am concerned about my stepdaughter's beliefs. She >has stated that she regards " Jesus as a loophole", >and that any sins she commits will be automatically >forgiven. > I was brought up to believe that while our sins will >be forgiven, we will still have to answer for our >sins...and that our good deeds will be as treasures in >heaven. > I have even had a Lutheran minister tell me that we >do not need to repent our sins to be forgiven. > I know that we are all sinners, and all need >forgiveness, but do we not need to recognize our sins >and try to refrain from sinning? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Re: Automatic forgiveness of sins? | Ryan | 19:01:10 09/22/06 Fri |