Here are promises that are so profound I can't for the life of me understand why people would actually believe and teach that God's children can never overcome sin in their lives. Nowhere in the bible are we told that we will always sin, or that we can never stop sinning. Quite contrary is the fact that the whole bible is full of commands to DO. Action words that tell us that there are things we must do in order to be saved. But we are not to do them with the idea we are earning salvation. Not only are there things we must do to be saved there are many places in the new testament alone that tell us what we MUST NOT DO in order to be saved. Obedience and works are the fruit of faith they do not earn faith. One of my favorite verses John 14:15 If you love me, keep my commandments. If we love we will do and not try to find the one obscure verse that does not exist that might lead one to believe that we can not overcome.
Anyway, in John 17 we read the prayer of Jesus for His disciples and toward the end of the prayer He ads those who are saved through their testimony. I have counted 14 very wonderful promises which we are to claim NOW while alive on this planet. Here is John 17 and the promises are bold and underlined. Some are so profound and so far fetched that it takes the righteousness of faith, Christ's righteousness imputed to us, to accept them, and claim them as our own.
Joh:17:1: These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
Joh:17:2: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
Joh:17:3: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Joh:17:4: I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
Joh:17:5: And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
Joh:17:6: I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
Joh:17:7: Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
Joh:17:8: For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
Joh:17:9: I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Joh:17:10: And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
Joh:17:11: And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
Joh:17:12: While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Joh:17:13: And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Joh:17:14: I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Joh:17:15: I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh:17:16: They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Joh:17:17: Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Joh:17:18: As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
Joh:17:19: And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Joh:17:20: Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
Joh:17:21: That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Joh:17:22: And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
Joh:17:23: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Joh:17:24: Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
Joh:17:25: O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
Joh:17:26: And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
For anybody to read and understand all these promises then say that "obedience is not necessary for salvation" or say that the Holy Spirit is not powerful enough to give us victory over every sin in our lives??? We are saved by grace through faith, but it does not end there, that is just the beginning of our Christian walk of sanctification.