Strictly Miscellaneous
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I respectfully disagree with this, because it tends to equate spiritual conviction with the popular idea of "magical thinking". There's many different things in both the Bible and Christianity as a whole, that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (not all doubt) through various evidential studies. If you're curious, I suggest you simply type "Christian apologetics" into YouTube, and watch a few videos on the subject. There's many smart people who have dedicated themselves to providing reasonable answers for why Christianity is true, not only that its so.
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The issue of "faith or works" is fairly complicated in the Bible. Different verses say that both are in various ways dependent on each other, and necessary in a believer's life. The way I understand it, placing your personal trust in God through Jesus redeems you by His blood, and gets you into Heaven. But its your actions after that, which serve as external evidence to the world that your inner nature has been changed.
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Saved from what?
Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. But it wasn't until Abraham offered up Isaac that God believed Abraham truly feared Him.
15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his[d] enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.
As for me I would like to receive the full blessings of God and that requires a work of faith.
Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. But it wasn't until Abraham offered up Isaac that God believed Abraham truly feared Him.
15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his[d] enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba.
As for me I would like to receive the full blessings of God and that requires a work of faith.
The answer to that question is one word: "sin"...and no amount of works can ever result in a person earning or deserving God's love and redemption. Only the blood of Jesus does that, and to access it requires repentance, which comes from a brutally honest heart instead of the hands. We have to be completely frank with both God and ourselves, admitting we have committed terrible crimes against Him and deserve to be punished for them. We have to sacrifice our self-serving egos, and have enough humility to tell Him we are sorry. When we place our trust in Him that way, God forgives us, but it has solely to do with the unmerited gift of His own love and grace.
The term "salvation" comes from several roots: the Old French "salvacion", the Latin "salva", and more broadly the Greek "soteria". All three share the common theme of being saved or rescued from harm or destruction, and when applied to Scripture it becomes very obvious that what we need saving from is our rightfully-deserved punishment in Hell. Many people balk at this, asking why a loving God would allow anyone to be eternally sentenced for a crime it took them only moments to commit. There's a few things to consider in response, and the first is God's inherent nature. He is perfectly loving, but He is also perfectly just, and as such He must by definition punish those who disobey Him - no one gets a free pass. Also, because God is eternal and we are not, that means any crime against Him must be paid for indefinitely. The only other solution is to present a replacement for us that shares His own nature, and that's who Jesus is. Also, people often mistake what Hell involves, thinking its a place where people are roasted alive by laughing demons forever...but the Bible never paints that picture. The popular word often used to describe that reality is "torture", but the Biblical one is "torment", and there's an important difference. Simply put, torture is done from the outside by others, while torment is self-inflicted. We aren't given a fully detailed picture of Hell in the Bible - its often been open for interpretation by Hollywood and writers like Dante. But whatever the fullness of it, the core essence involves permanent separation of sinners from God. Author C.S. Lewis once used this description: "Hell is nothing but yourself, for all eternity".
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Job was not going to go to hell. In chapter 1 God says he was righteous. But he needed salvation, so please, I am well aware that we need to be saved from sin and hell, but that is not all. We don't want to be door mats for Satan that he can kick around. That also is a matter of salvation. We would like to be the one that Satan is afraid of and not vice versa, so that also is a salvation. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling is not referring to being saved from sin, we didn't do anything for that salvation.
