What is salvation

VW · Feb 22, 2010

I will ask that you please bear with me, as this question has come up more than once.

A common belief of salvation is that we confess and believe, Jesus as our Lord, and that He has been raised from the dead. And the emphasis is on the believer believing, on the messenger preaching. In other words, a human salvation. There is lip service to the Spirit and being born again. This is a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Salvation is the work on God in the heart of the believer. It works like this: We hear the word spoken by an anointed speaker, that is, one who is sent of and by the Holy Spirit to speak His words in His power. We hear, because the Holy Spirit has opened our ears to hear His words of life. When we hear, we have a choice, either believe, or deny. If we believe, then He, the Holy Spirit will convict our heart of one essential fact, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Not just a belief, but we believe Him, His testimony, about Jesus. And we receive an invitation, to draw near to God, to become one of His children. If we accept, then the Holy Spirit gives us the new birth, the birth of the Spirit, as His children. We know from that point on that we are no longer of the world, but born of God.

Now someone will say, where is the cross in this? The cross is what Jesus was raised from, and that means that the cross is an active force in us by His Spirit, working in us to put to death the deeds of the flesh. We find in the cross our identity in and with Jesus, as He gave Himself up for us, and we die with Him, to be raised to newness of life by the power of the Spirit. The cross is the word that spoken by the sent one in the power of the Holy Spirit that convicted us of our sin, and of His righteousness, and of His love for us. The cross becomes central in our lives not as a stick on a hill, but as the eternal sign of God's love for us. We joyously accept the cross into our lives, because we now know who we are from.

And now we set upon the path of the Spirit of Christ, being our life from above, conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord.

For we are saved by grace, and that of faith, it is the gift of God.

amen

wattie · Feb 23, 2010

VW said:

saved by grace and that of faith.. gift of God.. YES

now.. this is the same as entrusting your spiritual well being with Jesus.

drawn by the Holy Spirit.. who taps on your heart.. then you either accept or deny.. acceptance is the same thing as entrusting your spiritual well being with Jesus.

so.. believing that Jesus died for you on the cross and confessing Him as saviour.. that is salvation. It is no perversion.

what do you think Romans 10 is going on about?

Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

and Acts?

Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Do you mean.. that just believing on the Lord Jesus without being drawn isn't salvation? That wouldn't be right.. because to believe on the Lord Jesus means you would be thinking about Him and wanting Him in your life.. He would be tapping on your heart to get to the point of believing in Him.

Like I said in the chat rooms.. I am sick and tired of people on this chat site demeaning the sinners prayer..

If it is genuine.. that is salvation.. plain and simple

It isn't a work on the part of the person asking.. it is just the person realising they can't save themselves and asking Jesus for salvation.

And if you are going to argue that we are depraved to the point of being unable to call for salvation.. how on earth are when then able to ask for daily deliverance after salvation ?

pickles · Feb 23, 2010

Amen, everyday, confessing, greatful, that all that we are is because of his salvation!
God bless, pickles

VW · Feb 23, 2010

wattie said:

Did you believe in a vacuum? God did not plant the seed? How did God draw us to believe? With words?

Am I talking about how we believe, or how we are saved?

Grace is God drawing near to us, by His Spirit.

We did not chose Him, He chose us.

Where did I demean the sinners prayer? If you had read my post, you would see Romans 10 through out it. How does one believe in the heart that Jesus was raised from the dead? In the heart!

I am sorry if you thought or if I appeared to be making the prayer of the sinner when they have been convicted by the Spirit as meaningless. If anything, it is the moment when God opens our hearts to Himself, so that we can come to Him, starting the way of life which is in and after and for Jesus.

Oh well.

superdave5221 · Feb 23, 2010

Most everyone is aware of the following verses:

Romans 3: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 1: 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace

Everyone pretty much agrees that salvation is a free gift that cannot be earned by works. But not everyone will be saved. It is a free gift, but some are destined for hell. So evidently, something is required of us in order to accept this gift. Consider the following:

Romans 10: 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

According to this verse, all we need to do is call on the name of the Lord. But you don’t have to go far to find additional requirements.

Romans 10: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Acts 16: 31 they replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your
household."

John 3: 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. </SPAN>

Now we are required to confess that “Jesus is Lord” and believe in our hearts. But what about the following:

1 Corinthians 1: 1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

Paul is saying that belief is not enough. He is saying that it is possible to “believe in vain” What does that mean? Is there more that we need? How about repentance?

Acts 3: 19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
And:

1 Peter 3: 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

Now we are told that we must repent and be baptized for forgiveness of sins, past and future.

Revelation 2: 10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

And we must remain faithful until death.

Now many in CC have used these verses in defending certain positions on many occasions. And these verses can all be used to support conflicting positions that are mutually exclusive.

But if these verse all represent the truth, and they must, if they are the inspired Word of God,
then why do they conflict? Is it possible that they are meant to be taken together, and not separately? If we all take one or two of these verses to support our preconceived opinions, then there is disunity of opinion. But if everyone agrees that ALL of them are true, each one presenting part of the truth, then there is no conflict and there is unity of opinion, which was God’s intention when giving us the bible.

VW · Feb 23, 2010

pickles said:

Let me give you my testimony, if God allows, and if you wish.

At the age of 10, in the Baptist church, while listening to the sermon by the preacher, he mentioned the cross and Jesus being raised from the dead. I distinctly remember thinking "yeah, right, how could that be?" And then I knew it was true, I just knew. Well, as at the end of every Baptist service, the call was given to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. I like, no way man, I ain't going up there in front of all those people. No way!

I could not stay in the pew. I could not. I tried.

I went and confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior. I said the sinners prayer.

Nothing happened that was from God for the 15 years. Nothing that was inside of me, that is, in my heart.

I was at work on base one day, I was 25 years old. I was in the Air Force, a NCO, married with children, not a care in the world, making more money than I needed, comfortable and happy. I saw this pickup truck, ratty and run down, several colors including primer, and on the tail gate was painted with a spray can, "Jesus saves." I remember very distinctly asking in my mind, "What kind of fool would paint that on his truck?" Three months later, that "fool" and I were working together. It was not coincidence, God arranged that for His purposes, to answer my question for sure, but to continue my salvation begin 15 years before.

The fool became my best friend, Larry, and we are still best friends now. Although I disturb him just as much as I do anyone and everyone else about whom I talk about Jesus to. And he is still my friend. He told me about the prophecies of Jesus' coming, His soon return. This was in 1977, and Hal Lindsey and others were really hot on the rapture coming soon, and then the Lord's return. I read all the books, many more books than I needed. I read one book though which was different. My wife's grandmother had passed, and she left me her books. Most of them were LDS books, but in there was one called letters. I picked it up and started reading, and could not put it down. It was a transliteration of the letters of Paul to the church. All I had ever been exposed to before was the KJV, and it was difficult to understand exactly what was being said. But this was clear, simple, easy to understand. I read it 3 times the first day. The first time in 1 hour. The second time took 3 hours. The third time took 6 hours. Over the next few months, I read that book many more times, always taking longer than the time before, and always asking myself, "Why was I not told these things before?" It was not even like reading the bible, because the promises were to great, like nothing I had ever heard before.

Well, I joined a church, one that I believed after much searching was where God was present, active, leading and loving. And it was good, for a long time, and I received the Spirit and the gift of tongues,(so I thought, and maybe I did.) I was assigned to Alaska for a year, and when I came back, it was not the same. Things just got legal, not spiritual. We stayed to the end of the church, as it became a cult and moved out to the country to live in a school bus. I descended into sin, and horrible sin it was. I still professed to believe in Jesus and in His salvation through His cross.

One night at work, as I was reading a book by Gene Edwards, about the entire history of the world from the view of heaven and the angels, I came to the portrayal of the cross. And I saw how every thing was crucified on the cross, that is, every thing of man and his ways. And God opened my eyes in a vision. I was stunned, speachless, and without strength to do or say anything. He showed me my life, held it up before me as He saw it, in His hand, before my eyes. It was ugly, stained, ruined. He told me that this life He could not accept into His kingdom, into His family. I was lost. Hopeless. Nothing left.

He took this life that was mine and as I saw Jesus on the cross, He put that ugly life into Jesus. He said that He would keep my old life there in Christ on the cross, because He knew that if He did not keep it there, then I would take it up again and walk in it to my destruction. I had nothing to say about these events. I could not say anything anyway. I had not one thing left in me that I was able to put confidence in as it was all gone.

I was the lowest person in the world, I had misrepresented Jesus to so many, and to myself. And as I looked at these things, I knew that I had really known that what I was believing and saying was not the whole truth. I had left out so much of what really matters, God's power.

Then God did an amazing thing. He loved me.

It broke my heart anew, rent it asunder. I could not contain my sorrow, my joy, my hope, my praise and thankfulness.

And so He taught me about salvation.

wattie · Feb 24, 2010

VW said:

Did you believe in a vacuum? God did not plant the seed? How did God draw us to believe? With words?

Am I talking about how we believe, or how we are saved?

Grace is God drawing near to us, by His Spirit.

We did not chose Him, He chose us.

Where did I demean the sinners prayer? If you had read my post, you would see Romans 10 through out it. How does one believe in the heart that Jesus was raised from the dead? In the heart!

I am sorry if you thought or if I appeared to be making the prayer of the sinner when they have been convicted by the Spirit as meaningless. If anything, it is the moment when God opens our hearts to Himself, so that we can come to Him, starting the way of life which is in and after and for Jesus.

Oh well.

Guess I misunderstood.. sorry.

I was just picking up on what you called a perversion.. what did you mean by that?

pickles · Feb 24, 2010

VW said:

Let me give you my testimony, if God allows, and if you wish.

At the age of 10, in the Baptist church, while listening to the sermon by the preacher, he mentioned the cross and Jesus being raised from the dead. I distinctly remember thinking "yeah, right, how could that be?" And then I knew it was true, I just knew. Well, as at the end of every Baptist service, the call was given to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. I like, no way man, I ain't going up there in front of all those people. No way!

I could not stay in the pew. I could not. I tried.

I went and confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior. I said the sinners prayer.

Nothing happened that was from God for the 15 years. Nothing that was inside of me, that is, in my heart.

I was at work on base one day, I was 25 years old. I was in the Air Force, a NCO, married with children, not a care in the world, making more money than I needed, comfortable and happy. I saw this pickup truck, ratty and run down, several colors including primer, and on the tail gate was painted with a spray can, "Jesus saves." I remember very distinctly asking in my mind, "What kind of fool would paint that on his truck?" Three months later, that "fool" and I were working together. It was not coincidence, God arranged that for His purposes, to answer my question for sure, but to continue my salvation begin 15 years before.

The fool became my best friend, Larry, and we are still best friends now. Although I disturb him just as much as I do anyone and everyone else about whom I talk about Jesus to. And he is still my friend. He told me about the prophecies of Jesus' coming, His soon return. This was in 1977, and Hal Lindsey and others were really hot on the rapture coming soon, and then the Lord's return. I read all the books, many more books than I needed. I read one book though which was different. My wife's grandmother had passed, and she left me her books. Most of them were LDS books, but in there was one called letters. I picked it up and started reading, and could not put it down. It was a transliteration of the letters of Paul to the church. All I had ever been exposed to before was the KJV, and it was difficult to understand exactly what was being said. But this was clear, simple, easy to understand. I read it 3 times the first day. The first time in 1 hour. The second time took 3 hours. The third time took 6 hours. Over the next few months, I read that book many more times, always taking longer than the time before, and always asking myself, "Why was I not told these things before?" It was not even like reading the bible, because the promises were to great, like nothing I had ever heard before.

Well, I joined a church, one that I believed after much searching was where God was present, active, leading and loving. And it was good, for a long time, and I received the Spirit and the gift of tongues,(so I thought, and maybe I did.) I was assigned to Alaska for a year, and when I came back, it was not the same. Things just got legal, not spiritual. We stayed to the end of the church, as it became a cult and moved out to the country to live in a school bus. I descended into sin, and horrible sin it was. I still professed to believe in Jesus and in His salvation through His cross.

One night at work, as I was reading a book by Gene Edwards, about the entire history of the world from the view of heaven and the angels, I came to the portrayal of the cross. And I saw how every thing was crucified on the cross, that is, every thing of man and his ways. And God opened my eyes in a vision. I was stunned, speachless, and without strength to do or say anything. He showed me my life, held it up before me as He saw it, in His hand, before my eyes. It was ugly, stained, ruined. He told me that this life He could not accept into His kingdom, into His family. I was lost. Hopeless. Nothing left.

He took this life that was mine and as I saw Jesus on the cross, He put that ugly life into Jesus. He said that He would keep my old life there in Christ on the cross, because He knew that if He did not keep it there, then I would take it up again and walk in it to my destruction. I had nothing to say about these events. I could not say anything anyway. I had not one thing left in me that I was able to put confidence in as it was all gone.

I was the lowest person in the world, I had misrepresented Jesus to so many, and to myself. And as I looked at these things, I knew that I had really known that what I was believing and saying was not the whole truth. I had left out so much of what really matters, God's power.

Then God did an amazing thing. He loved me.

It broke my heart anew, rent it asunder. I could not contain my sorrow, my joy, my hope, my praise and thankfulness.

And so He taught me about salvation.

Beautiful!
Even though my body each day dies a little more, his spirit in me grows stronger and greater.
God bless, pickles

VW · Feb 24, 2010

wattie said:

Many times, the gospel of the cross of Jesus is empty or void of the power of the Spirit, and instead just a formula, a set of words that if one says the right thing, and believes, they have done all that is needed to be saved. The sinner is still alive, and will remain alive, because the conviction of the Spirit is not preached or taught. This leaves the hearer of this gospel in one of several very bad places. The most likely place is not receiving grace, because the conviction of sin is lacking, (this salvation is what I call selfish salvation,) and the person only says what is required to be saved. But are they? We will have no excuse in that day, when we see these who thought they were saved, but never drew near to God, because they were never convicted of their sin. Look at Peter's first sermon, and see the conviction, when he says, " and this Jesus you crucified."

I believe in the sinners prayer. I know that many pray this prayer without the conviction of Jesus dieing for them, and because of them. If they believe they have salvation when in fact they do not, it will take much more to convict them, if even possible. I fear greatly for many who have received a cheap gospel. Our salvation is precious beyond any word's power to convey. It is the most precious thing in heaven or on earth. The price He paid is without cost and beyond value.

In His perfect peace,

wattie · Feb 27, 2010

Ok.. I understand what you are typing now

A false conversion.... can be where someone just says words-- no heart in it..

I saw this in it's worst form with this utube video about some young evangelical christians sharing at disneyland.. as well as doing some highly suspect 'healings' ..it made a mockery of salvation by just getting people to repeat back words given them.

So ya.. ungenuine professions can happen... from self instead of from God.

VW · Feb 27, 2010

wattie said:

the worst thing about a salvation without the work of the spirit is that it is just like an inocculation, and tends to PROTECT the person from the conviction of the spirit.

please forgive my typing, i can only use one hand and that the left.

blessings sister

phil36 · Feb 27, 2010

VW said:

I like how you put that VW

kind regards

phil

Lauren · Feb 27, 2010

VW said:

Great testimony! The section above in particular put a giant smile on my face as it brought to mind the day that I was saved. It brought back that day to me as if it had happened yesterday. thanks for the grin, VW

~ Lauren

ps. sorry to derail there, I know the testimony wasn't the main gist of this thread.....but it really blessed me anyhows!

VW · Feb 27, 2010

Lauren said:

no that's cool. actually it ties in perfectly with another thread, about doctrines.

so thank you, i am blessed that you are blessed.
vic

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