Are any of the staff here got saved by shallow theology?

[tonyt147]

I remembered I got saved through John 3:16 at the age of 13. But I lived in sins for the rest of the way before the Lord pulled be back on the right path five years ago. I'm 30 now. In retrospect, I didn't really understand what happened to me when I got saved except that I was enable to believe in the simple gospel. My verbal confession of faith was an obnoxious 'yes' to the question, 'Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins on the cross?'. I remembered I was so anxious to give the right verbal confession that I didn't know which line to use: 'Jesus is lord', 'Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God', 'Jesus is fully man and fully God', or 'I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose again three days later' etc...I remember I got so frustrated about this issue and thought to myself 'do I have to recite the whole bible before the congregation to prove to you guys that I believed?'. The one thing I didn't believe though was that God enabled me to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was very foolish now that I think about it. As if I enabled myself to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ or that I needed some formal creed to give me the right answers.

The answer was very simple for me at least: 'I believe Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior.'. I said just that when a pastor pulled a quick one on me to try to trip me up so that I would have to give a split second response. The only person in that room who didn't believe in my confession was myself. Because I couldn't believe that I was a child of God by the way I lived for so long after my baptism. So I went on to search for answers endlessly and got trapped in a bunch of false teachings as a result.

Now I finally figured it out. The one demonic doctrine that tripped me up was the fact that I didn't believe faith in Christ is a gift of God, and he give it to whomever he want. No one can produce it on their own in whatever way, nor can it be lost once you have received it freely. Because it costed him his son Jesus Christ.

Did anyone got saved by shallow theology? What was the journey like for you?

[Omegaman 3.0]

My theological response, lol, tends to be a bit different from my personal experience. Not that my theological response is wrong, it is just that I did not have the theology to believe in at the time, it was just a simple trust in God/Jesus, and a hesitant commitment to follow, to have Him as the Lord of my life, since being in charge of my own life was not working out that well for me. I don't think I even had John 3:16 yet, just an understanding in basic terms of who God is, and His right to own me and be my Lord, and an awareness that I did not have any ability to pledge anything, I knew I would break promises, left to myself. So, it was just a plea for God's help, and an offering of myself to be His, without reservations or conditions.

Bottom line, we are not saved by theology, we are saved by grace, through faith. Faith is believing God. He gives faith, it is all His work. The faith that God Himself gives, will grow AFTER we have been born again. When we are born again, we have the Spirit of God within us, then, and only then, can we be truly drawn to God, seek Him, Understand Him, and become His friends and adopted children, instead of His enemies.

Being born again like this, is not something we do, it is not our decision. When we think we are making a decision, we are merely affirming the work that God has done in us! That work is what allows us to begin to understand the theology of what has happened to us.

Thank you Lord for your grace, your mercy, and the faith you gave me!