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We all need Biblical assurance of our salvation. Suppose you have doubts because of the lifestyle you are living. We cannot trust ourselves to whether we are saved, we must go to the Word of God to determine God's will and His sure-fire test of how we can know we are saved. It's what God's Word says about our life, not what we say about it or what others say for us.
Examine yourself:
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
It's what God's Word says about our life, not what we say about it or what others say for us.
Yep.
1Ti 2:3 for this is ideal and welcome in the sight of our Saviour, God,
1Ti 2:4 Who wills that all mankind be saved and come into a realization of the truth.
When God writes you in the book of life he doesn't have an eraser. We all continue to sin but we ask for forgiveness and move forward. Only God knows sometimes if that person is saved or not. Life and maturity are a process that lasts our whole lifetime. I look at my dad going on 90 and he studies God's word every day and is still growing in his walk.
When God writes you in the book of life he doesn't have an eraser. We all continue to sin but we ask for forgiveness and move forward. Only God knows sometimes if that person is saved or not. Life and maturity are a process that lasts our whole lifetime. I look at my dad going on 90 and he studies God's word every day and is still growing in his walk.
Absolutely, driftwoodpoint. Sanctification is indeed a process, but if sanctification is not happening or never happens, then regeneration never occurred. I encourage you to watch the message.
Washer continues in the series with a focus on 1 John 1:8-10:
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
If we do not acknowledge our sin, if we say we do not sin, we greatly deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. More than that, we call the Lord over all creation a liar! Let it be known that a new relationship with God means a new relationship with sin. If you are not sensitive to the sin in your life, if you claim to not be sinning when you are living in it, then your very soul may be hanging in the balance. Please watch this 30 minute message and use it as a tool to examine yourself. Please pray for the Lord to soften your heart and gives you ears to hear. Throw away your pride and take a few moments to examine your heart.
There is a weak Gospel preached in America today that has led many to a false assurance of salvation. Many preachers tell you if you said a prayer once and were sincere, then you are saved. They have no concern whether there has been a heart transformation that has generated a new creature in Christ. The truth is, however, that if we profess to be born again believers, we must examine ourselves in light of Scripture to see if our faith is true.
The book of 1 John is filled with a number of tests for us to examine ourselves. 1 John 5:13
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
We do not have to live in doubt as to whether our salvation is secure or not. Carefully studying 1 John and all of Scripture with diligence will reveal to us God's will for our lives and give us discernment as to whether or not we truly believe in our hearts. The characteristics of a child of God are evident, yet professing a relationship with God while walking in darkness makes us liars and we do not live by the truth as 1 John 1:6 says
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Washer goes on to say that if the professed Christian lives a style of life that completely contradicts the nature and will of God, if this style of life reflects a character of our own nature that is completely different than the character of God, if this lifestyle contradicts what He has revealed about His will in the Word of God - we are not saved.
We must be sensitive to sin, for this is evidence that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. 1 John 1:8 tells us, "
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Many professed Christians are numb to sin. They don't even acknowledge their sins although God has plainly told us in Scripture that those who practice a lifestyle of sin will not inherit the Kingdom of God. When we are sensitive to the sins we commit as believers, the Holy Spirit leads us to repentance and confession. If we say we have a new relationship with God, we must also have a new relationship with sin. We will grow to hate it, and our love for God's Word will increase. This will lead to obedience as 1 John 2:3-6 says
Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
Because salvation is a supernatural work of God, the regenerated believer will grow in a style of life given towards the Word of God to know and obey it with some measure of victory. We will develop a new relationship not only to God and sin, but to the Scriptures. This is not to say, at all, that believers will not sin; however, the believer will no longer live a habitual lifestyle of sin. We all struggle and this battle will continue until we receive our glorified bodies. But we as believers do not relish in our sins, justifying these actions that are great offense to the Lord of lords. We are convicted by the Holy Spirit to confess our sins before God and turning from them. The heart of the unbeliever is different, however. They do not have a concern with walking in the light, sin is no big deal to them, and the Word of God has no place in their hearts. And this is true of many professed Christians because their hearts were never changed. They deceive themselves because of a prayer they once said, yet their life produces no fruit of God.
God loves us so much, and the more we understand how deep His unconditional love is, we will want to increase in our obedience to Him. 1 John 2 says
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
His commandments are not burdensome to those who love Him. If we say we have the desire to walk with Him, we will strive to walk like Him. Yet some who profess the name of Christ have no passion for Him. Rather, they look like the world, talk like the world, and act like the world. If one says they walk with Christ, there will be some reflection of Him in his walk.
The validity of our faith comes through a changed life.
The only way one can be assured of their salvation is if they live free from willful sin. God does not tolerate disobedience.
Not true.
The Christian life is about relationship. In an earthly family structure (designed by God), its members are defined by physical birth and by relationship. The family is not defined by what a person does.
The same goes for a relationship with Christ - except that it is by spiritual birth and relationship and not by deeds.
In the earthly family, there is a record of birth and signatures of witnesses.
For those in Christ, the spiritual family, our witness is the Holy Spirit - who bears witness with our Spirit concerning the truth of the gospel and assurance that we are God's child by faith.
Rom. 8:16 - The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
1 John 5:6b - It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
1 John 5:10a - The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself;
Assurance comes from the Holy Spirit who testifies the truth of the gospel of Christ to me and to all who have received the Holy Spirit through belief in the gospel.
Sanctification is a word that false teachers mention, if necessary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shibata
It means that those who talk about sanctification may be false teachers, very evil people indeed. So if someone brings up the subject in a personal context, inevitably, suspicion falls on them that they are trying to establish their own sanctity while actually being evil.
1 Thess. 4:3-8 - 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
I'm not entirely disappointed that a KJV user thinks so.
That's NASB - not KJV.
Comforting yourself with a small comment may make you feel better now, but you do it at your own peril.
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