The bolded parts above are where you go off the tracks, PJ, and it's so subtle. It's not through our obedience and forgiveness that we are changed, but because of Christ's obedience on our behalf and His forgiveness of our sins, allowing Him to fill us with God's righteousness and new life by which change can occur.
We are changed because of what Christ DID, not because of what we DO.
Then we learn to walk as who we are in Christ - New Creations.
You wrote,
"You are forgiven and accepted into heaven therefore you will conquer selfishness and do Gods will."
We DO the conquering? No, Christ DID the conquering, and it is only IN Him and BECAUSE of Him that we ARE conquerors:
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (from Rom. 8)
Colossians 2 clarifies it further, and aptly describes much of what you write here, PJ:
1 I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. 2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Col. 2)
PJ, your style is to bring in key elements of truth, and then disqualify those truths by mixing into them the requirement of working to obtain what God has already provided for in Christ.
Take the concept of being thankful for the forgiveness of God, for instance. You wrote,
"A prostitute, who He forgave, washed Jesus's feet with her hair. What love, what humbleness, what a gift of life.
That one act has gone through history, spoken about, and Jesus uplifted and honoured this jesture. What a King we follow, it brings me to tears, and praise, that this is my King. Amen."
You completely missed it. You think that Jesus honored her gesture, which He does for her benefit before the self-righteous in their midst, but you missed WHY she came and did what she did:
47 "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” (from Luke 7)
She had heard that Jesus was there, and went with thankfulness to Him. Her gesture wasn't to GET Jesus' forgiveness, but because she already HAD His forgiveness - ". . . her many sins HAVE BEEN forgiven . . . " She had undoubtedly met Jesus previously, and He had extended His forgiveness to her already, " . . . as her love has shown." Her expression of love toward Him was a response to the forgiveness He had already given to her, not a means by which to get Him to forgive her.
Even then, Jesus lovingly REASSURES her, in the midst of those criticizing both Jesus and the woman, "Your sins ARE forgiven."
Will you even read this post, PeterJens? Will you even try to understand what is written here?
No matter - hopefully it will be helpful for others to see your method of mixing a little bit of Jesus and a lot of self, layered with false humility, into your posts, and the resulting false gospel that is so subtly presented in your writing.
Dear reader, go to the Scriptures to understand that if you have received the Forgiveness, Righteousness, and New Life that is in Christ, ALL of your sins have been forgiven. Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Out of that thankfulness and a growing trust for God's goodness toward you will flow a walk honoring to God.
As you are rooted and built up in Christ, His Fruit WILL be produced in you - you won't be able to help it - you will find yourself walking in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (from Gal. 5).
As issues come up in life, your Father God will lovingly discipline you - and understand that discipline is not because of your past, but training for your future - and in Him, that training produces a harvest of righteousness (see Hebrews 12).
You will always have day to day, minute to minute choices that you must make, and as you learn of the great Grace and Love and Patience that your Father has for you,
Grace and peace,
-JGIG
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