IF...

[NITE OWL]

I know there is a God and Christ is His Son and His Spirit guides me. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is nothing greater than the power of God and I believe the only way to see God is through His Son Jesus and the only way to go through Christ is the Holy Spirit. I believe all that.

So if I believe all that, I must be saved. Right?

I mean I believe whole heartedly in John 3:16. There is nothing in this world that can take this belief away from me.

But what I've been reading here is that all I have to do is believe. I can go back to my drugs, my booze, my women, my stealing, my lies, everything I put behind me because of my genuine belief in the All Mighty.

I don't need to read the bible because I'm saved. I don't need to walk in the Light bacause I'm saved. It doesn't matter what I do because I'm saved.

Some of you will say I was never saved to begin with but that statement doesn't apply because I believe. And believing is all that's needed, right? I believe God's commandments but I don't have to follow them because I'm saved, right?

I don't think so.

God gave us a message and that message is Christ. He gave us a book and a simple set of rules to live by. He said "if you deny Me, I will deny you".

The bible is full of passages that talk about what will happen if we turn our backs on God.

If simply believing is all that is needed to be saved, Christ died in vain.

Again, I expect hate mail, but that's ok. How else are you going to learn.

If you all don't want to hear the message, just tell me to go away and I will.

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God".

[Christ's Free Servant]

It's all about faith. Believing deep down in your heart that God will be true to His word if we are obedient to Him.

Obedience is simply trust in the Lord and loving your neighbor as yourself. Treat everyone else the way you want to be treated. It is so simple that most people don't get it.

Teach from the heart. Be honest. Some will be offended. Their eternity not your's. Let the Spirit be your guide.

What is OSAS? Never heard of it.

I hope it helped

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Thank you for your words of encouragement. They helped!!

OSAS - Once Saved Always Saved

[Christ's Free Servant]

I hate to be a pain. However, I noticed that nobody directly addressed the quotes and why there seemed to be some conditions in those verses. I would be interested in a direct discussion on those.

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BigJer,

I started to answer this on here, but then the more I thought about it, I thought it would probably get lost here and you and I would probably be the only ones discussing it. So, I began a new post under General Discussion, hoping that we could get more people involved in the discussion, since this is a topic that affects all of us, if we understand it correctly. So, I hope you will join in the discussion over there under IF... continued. Thanks so much for all your input.

Oh, I think I still have an article to read and to respond to... tomorrow is another day... hey, I think it is already tomorrow. Guess it is time to call it a night!!

[Christ's Free Servant]

http://www.drurywriting.com/keith/security.htm

This page does a great job of describing my thoughts on the OSAS issue. Thoughts?

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Ok, I finally got around to reading it. It makes sense. It's kind of how I view things, too. I am kind of in the middle there somewhere. I didn't grow up in a church that leaned one way or another. The denomination I grew up under was really not even a denomination for about 70 years. The founder was not looking to form a denomination. He was just reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he wanted to see a movement of God that would continue even after the revival crusades ended. His emphasis was being filled with the Spirit and Holy living. There was never this feeling that one could pray a prayer and then be assured of salvation w/o life evidence of a changed life. The book of James and the book of I John deal with that very well, I believe. The problem I see is that all the OSAS people will not even consider those scriptures in light of eternal security. I think the biggest concern here is that many, many people have been fed a lie of Satan that says a prayer of faith is all that is necessary to secure their home in heaven. This way of thinking has spread like wildfires throughout the USA, along with the pre-trib rapture thing, so that basically all one has to do is pray this prayer and one day he/she will be taken to be with Jesus in the clouds and he/she will never have to repent or suffer for Christ or the sake of the gospel. Who wouldn't want that?