I suppose I should clarify: ^^^^^^
Let me of course ask you a few questions.
If you have sinned with your eyes, why haven't you plucked out your right eye? (and why is Jesus letting you keep your left eye?). Same with your hands.
How are you doing with being more righteous than the pharisees? they were SERIOUS about keeping the Law of Moses.
How about being as perfect as God.....that's a tough one. Don't give me the try stuff either, Jesus was VERY specific about it."Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect" He commanded you to be perfect.
So you my friend have failed miserably at following just a couple of these things and will be cast into the pit of Hell.......But for His grace and mercy there is a way. Thank God.
Jesus was teaching the Law. His ministry while he walked the earth was to show how futile it was to try to live by the law.
That the only way to live was by His Grace and Mercy.
That what He was about to do on the cross was going give us a way.
The New Covenant, not yet established while Jesus was giving the sermon on the mount. If anything those folks left with a sense of "we are doomed, WHAT can we do. This teacher has given us MORE than we could ever possibly handle, MORE than the Pharisees are already crushing us with currently... HELP US, please HELP us!!!!" And then He did. All praise and Glory to the Messiah for what he has done.
You see there is contextual and chronological meaning in that bible you read, and if you understand it for the purpose it was written, you truly will be set free, not just in the life after physical death, but NOW on earth, not bound by the Law and its heavy weight, but free in the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17 : Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
John 8:36 : So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Galatians 5:1: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yolk of slavery.
So this is the state of my salvation:
Ephesians 1:13: "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
Romans 11:29: "For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable"
John 10:28: "I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand"
So I have: sealed, promised, irrevocable, never and no one will snatch. I would say that is definitive.
Part of the problem with your post is you assume too much.
First, that I am like you are, in that I sin all the time, 'cause "I'm a sinner saved by grace", and that I am not righteous because I sin everyday, all day.
And second, that I am somehow trying to work my way to heaven with good works, and that if I fail to perform well enough, that I won't make it to heaven. I never said such a thing.
I am a born again child of the King, right now, and have been for better than 3 decades. I too am sealed by the blood of Jesus because I keep His word. And by "keep", I mean within my heart. And by doing that, I allow the word of God to mold me into His image. "Thy
word oh Lord have I hid in mine heart THAT I MIGHT NOT SIN AGAINST THEE."
If your conscience never bothers you about anything you do and you are doing as you believe you should, which would be walking in the Spirit, and that would include, walking/living by faith, loving God, and doing to others (before they do unto you, ha ha) as you would have them do to you. If you are doing that, then it is possible for God's children to be perfect, even as God is perfect.
Jas 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
If you don't know you are sinning, like when I use to say, "Good God...", then God does not hold that against you as sin.
But when God told me to stop saying that, that I was saying His name in vain, though it took me 2 months to understand why, I would have to catch myself, and eventually I stopped. If I continued after I knew it was a sin, then it would have been counted as a sin.
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but
sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 7:8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.
Rom 7:9 For
I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
Rom 7:10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
Rom 7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.