If your struggling with sin, have you lost your salvation?

[kwikphilly]

29 minutes ago, Ineedhugs said:

Thanks guys for the encouraging words. Even if i'm not going to hell if i die suddenly i still would feel better connected to God if i didn't repeat the same sin over and over. Oh well, i'll still keep on trying. I read my bible every day for about an hour and pray and ask God to help me overcome sin. Apart from that i'm not sure what else to do.

But thanks for the encouraging words guys. 

Blessings  & here is a hug for you

 It is nice to meet you & welcome to this Worthy Ministry

Many people struggle with the flesh after they are Born Again and so "No",a sin of the flesh will not cancel out the Guaranteed Seal of Redemption -hell has no claim on your spirit. That's the short answer but not the best answer to give because if one continually behaves as they have always done before they've accepted Jesus as Lord & Savior we must wonder if they were actually Saved in the first place....

  That is why nooby wisely answered....

5 hours ago, enoob57 said:

you need to work out your salvation with more fear and trembling because with your words you say you love God but with your actions you are saying you love the flesh... read Romans 7:1 to 8:14..

   You've asked what ELSE should you do besides reading your Bible an hour a day,pray & ask God to "help you" overcome sin.....This is a common approach & imo a very inadequate approach because of a preconceived notion that "doing" something by our own efforts is required

   You see.let me try to explain & encourage you to not TRY but instead get out of Gods Way.....If you are truly Born Again then you are Indwelled by Holy Spirit,Jesus Abides in you-you already HAVE the Power to step on serpents & scorpions and you ARE more than a Conqueror in Christ Jesus now all you need to KNOW is that its the renewing of your mind that will unlock the chains that bind you because you've been Delivered ALREADY,2000 yrs ago at the cross!

   My friend,may I suggest to you to go back to the Book of John and Embrace Gods Word as a personal LOVE letter addressed to you from God Himself.....God Has Already given you the Power to OVERCOME and just by your words I get the feeling that you do not yet Understand that,you ask God to do it for you but He already Has-you see? This is a renewing of the mind so that you can transition into the New Creature in Christ that you are supposed to be.Our Lord changes our heart & mind but He cannot do it if we will not give it to Him and we hold onto it struggling to try & change it ourselves.

   When you Receive the Knowledge of WHO you are in Christ Jesus you  enter into Gods Rest,there is no struggling there,no work to resist the temptation of pornography because the desires of your heart change if you renew your mind..Reading the Bible an hour a day sounds like a task,seeking the Lord with all of your heart,soul & mind  will light a fire inside you that only the Word of God can  quench that hunger & thirst you have....look for a Relationship with God in Christ the same as you are starting relationships here.You cannot see me,hear me or touch me but yet you have just met me & you are listening to me as I am talking to you  from words on this screen-you believe I am here,right? That is how you begin your Relationship with our Heavenly Father,read that way,read the Living Word with as much Faith as you have that I am real-Jesus is THE WORD and He is in you,near you,for you and if you are not Born Again you may very well be on your way !!!

   I do believe this may help you to let go & let God-"trying" has never worked for you before & it won't work now,the trick is to stop trying and submit to Christ's Lordship with all of your heart.When you pray ask for Wisdom & Understanding(which you don't have yet),you already have the Power to overcome,pray for the knowledge of WHO your are in Christ,pray to deepen your Intimate Relationship-with Gods Blessed Assurance you only need to trust Him with your life,Holy Spirit does the rest(when you REST)

  I sure hope you understand what I'm trying to tell you....most babes in Christ really struggle for the much enthusiasm to "do" well/right/Holy/Worthy/acceptable,sinless when in fact it has already been done,the enemy goes after the unarmed and especially those that don't know they've already won-he doesn't care that there is a big sign that says"NO TRESPASSING/GODS PROPERTY" the same way any lying thief will try to break in private property with a sign posted  that is without a guard. When you learn WHO you are in Christ you won't be easily deceived when alarms go off,you'll be better prepared to guard you heart & set your mind on things of God.

  For now,Embrace Gods Love and simply get to know Him,not just about Him-ask our Lord to change the desires of your heart to be nearer Him- I'm praying for you             

                                                                               With love-in Christ,Kwik
 

[AnOrangeCat]

Struggling with sin is something we do every day. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Psalm 37:24 puts it nicely: "though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds Him with His hand." I'd also consider Philippians 1:6: "being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

We're all works in progress. We're all bound to mess up. We struggle with sin because sin is part of our natures and will continue to be throughout our earthly lives. So no one should beat themselves up if they make a mistake. Just move on and try to do better next time.

[Holy999]

9 hours ago, Ineedhugs said:

Lets say your addicted to pornography, alcohol or drugs or anything else. Your trying to repent but hear and there you just wide up giving in, then you confess your sin and try again and again and again.

Do you think a person like this would wide up in hell if they died?

Do your best

[JohnD]

God gave us the law to establish what sin is.

God loathes sin.

But God never intended to weaponize the Law.

Hell is where humanity is predestined for.

The only exception is for people who believe in Jesus Christ.

Belief alone. (John 3:16-18 / Ephesians 2:8-10 / John 16:27) and we are

already / forever saved and cannot sin our way out of salvation (1 Corinthians 5:5).

It obviously would be better if we did no sin... but realistically, we sin every day.

Sex sins, drugs, etc. these are particularly bad sins...

but none can sin your way out of salvation.

Be blessed in Christ.

[johnthebaptist]

11 hours ago, Ineedhugs said:

Lets say your addicted to pornography, alcohol or drugs or anything else. Your trying to repent but hear and there you just wide up giving in, then you confess your sin and try again and again and again.

Do you think a person like this would wide up in hell if they died?

I believe hell is what your life turns into when you sin. If you repent of your sin, you escape that hell. 

[enoob57]

6 hours ago, Ineedhugs said:

Thanks guys for the encouraging words. Even if i'm not going to hell if i die suddenly i still would feel better connected to God if i didn't repeat the same sin over and over. Oh well, i'll still keep on trying. I read my bible every day for about an hour and pray and ask God to help me overcome sin. Apart from that i'm not sure what else to do.

But thanks for the encouraging words guys. 

God cannot lie!

James 4:8

8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
KJV

God hates immorality and loves you learn to reckon that which is in you that loves immorality as dead and strive to live in God's love.... do the work to block all paths this immorality uses to get to you and build new paths where it cannot reach you. Actively build a hedge about yourself with busyness with the work of God! Be proactive to a Godly walk and spend all your energies to that end   

 

[Coliseum]

13 hours ago, Jostler said:

no, i do not.  I think it just proves someone needs to believe in more than His power to get us born again.  Struggling with unbelief is something we all have to do as He brings us from salvation to sanctification, salvation of the soul.  You're not the only one who has struggled with the problem of knowing we're called to manifest in our outward lives the truth of the inward fact that HE has (already) made us to become the very righteousness of God in Him.

It torments a born again believer to experience this conflict between a pure spirit and impure flesh.  He showed me something in a time of struggle similar to yours, gave me a tool of understanding that is capable of breaking that horrible cycle of repetitive sin we seem to be unable to break.  We can't break it   That's the problem.  We have to believe He HAS BROKEN IT.   Until we do, we remain "unbelieving believers"

 

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family that introduced me to the things  of God early.  My mother and father were born again and placed importance on raising their kids with  knowledge  of Him.  My dad made the effort to get me to memorize two passages of Scripture at two  years  of age.  They were Psalm 37:4 and Proverbs 3:5-6.  They've stuck with me all my  life and it was during this massive and frustrating struggle against sin I  experienced He trotted one of those passages out and changed my whole perspective on the fight.

   

  

 

During this season I was truly grieved over my continual return to the sin I hated and ashamed to even try to pray.  Somehow He gave me the strength to approach Him in prayer one more time and this time something happened.  He brought this passage my  father had made me memorize at the age of two to mind.  I  promise you that  if you  will simply not quit, He is just as eager and willing to manifest Himself in you just as powerfully as He did for my sake, as I am about  to describe.

I responded to His prompting by  opening  my  Bible to Psalm 37:4 to read it again.  I read it very slowly and when I hit the word "also" He ARRESTED me on that word.  By now He had made His  presence with  me felt.  I could literally feel the atmosphere had changed and He  was there WITH me.  And it was comforting and relaxing, in no way  condemning.  I have experienced Him this way several times in my life now and I honestly believe you can expect Him to  do the same for you.

Moving on, without words I knew He was asking me to really stop and think about what I was reading when He pulled me to an abrupt stop on the word "also".  So I stopped.

Delight yourself ALSO...."What is significant  about  that  word?" I thought.   Delight yourself ALSO, in the Lord.....ALSO.  That means "in addition  to".  As soon as I thought "in addition to" for  the second  time in my life He spoke to my mind in words.  It was not literal  sound but words formed in my head that were just as real as if He was sitting across the table from me.

I thought "In addition  to what, Lord?"  and He said "In addition to that sin you're delighting in."

??!!  What??!

As He continued to explain, number one He  was NOT excusing the  sin.  He will never do that.  But His meaning was pointing to the fact that my  focus  on that  sin, had brought  me to a place of feeling such  shame that I couldn't read my Bible, couldn't pray and couldn't face Him.  He  made it clear that  I needed  to focus on and delight  in Him in SPITE of  those feelings of shame and distance.  The feelings were lying.

Now, He also  opened up a "layer" of meaning from that verse I had never seen before.  As a child and up to  this  point I had understood that passage:

   

  

...to mean that if I would delight myself in Him, He  would fulfill my heart's desires.   And it's true! He DELIGHTS in fulfilling every holy  heart's desire any  of  His kids can come up  with But there is a deeper layer of meaning contained there and it was this  one He  now opened for me for the first  time.

I was given to understand that if I would FOCUS on delighting  in Him to the  fullest extent I was able, He promised me He  would work  in that to GIVE ME  the desires of the  heart that were pleasing to  Him.

In other  words, He wasn't ignoring the sin, He was saying that my focusing  ON the  sin more than on Him was actually empowering  its hold on me and if I would focus on Him  more instead He  would take away the unholy DESIRE to sin and replace it with His desires for me so that I'd WANT the same things He  wanted for me.  He promised to transform my heart and not just fulfill the desires of my own but actually begin taking  away the unholy desires that were plaguing me and replace them with desires He longed to fulfill for my sake

He's no respecter of persons.  There is not one single thing He'll do for me that He  won't do for any one  of His other  children.  This encounter with Him has been applied by  me over and over when I'm confronted with unholy  desires and He has been faithful to His promise.

That's my testimony on that part....I hope He speaks to  you through it.  He is faithful.  This dynamic is powerful and I came to understand this is why  satan will inspire feelings of deep shame and desire to hide when he's managed to get us to give ourselves to sinning.  If he  can keep us from delighting in Him because of the shame and deep desire to "hide" from Him then we'll keep ourselves locked up in a prison  of our  own making.  Notice that's one of the first things that hit Adam after he fell.  A desire to hide.  He hid.  Satan got him to hide from the ANSWER to his problem.

The other thing I wanted to  bring to bear is really  simple, but difficult to apply.  It takes some work, and in fact it is the ONLY work He assigned to US.  EVERYTHING else is HIS work which  we are to  simply believe and walk in,  when He  says to, to such a degree that it's not us "working" at all but Him working through us.  And the "work" He  assigned us isn't even a physical act We are to  enter  into REST....ceasing from physical "doing" of ANYTHING that comes from our own inspiration.  Another topic Maybe we can get  into  that  later ....dunno...we'll see where  He goes with this.  But this is the "work" He assigned to us:

   

   

The 'work' He assigned us is simply believing.  I want to  back up a verse and get the  context for proof.

   

 

   

 

Someone in the  crowd had asked a genuine  question and I believe Jesus genuinely answered with exactly  the  right answer.  I'm assuming the question came from a real desire to serve and please God and Jesus genuinely responded.

It's your BELIEF that your  current emotions  of guilt and shame are designed to attack.  And there lies your "work".

   

   

 

1.  It is HIS grace, which HE extended, apart from any  "works" we can do

2. That has MADE us (past tense!....done deal!)

3.  ACCEPTED.  PERIOD.

As we are,  RIGHT  NOW.....in all our faults and remaining  sins.

Any feeling that says otherwise is lying and deserves resistance

 

There's a lot more can be said.....probably enough for one sitting...

Thank you for that Jostler. Each of us is being spoken to by the Lord in the way that best transforms him. What you went through to appreciate your understanding of His Spirit working in and through you can only mean something change-worthy to you because of your own experiences and circumstances; they provide for us certainly another perspective from His Word.

This brought me to the familiar passage of Philippians 4:6 (KJV)
^"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

This to me is a very invasive passage---to worry about nothing, which is the absence of everything, and while we are not worrying about the absence of everything, we are to pray, and leave nothing out (pray about everything) . How close a perspective I can gather from this really hit home when I was reading Vernon McGee's commentary:

"Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others.

Maybe you think it sounds very pious when I am willing to testify that I take my burdens to the Lord in prayer. I must confess that after I spread everything out before Him, when I finish praying, I pick it all right back up, put the problems back on my shoulders, and start out with the burden again. That is my problem. The Lord wants us to trust Him so that we worry about nothing, pray about everything. I wish I could say to you that I'm as free as the bird in the trees, free as the bees gathering honey. That's the way He wants us to be."

J. Vernon McGee's Thru the Bible - – Thru The Bible with J. Vernon McGee.

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Coliseum

[Gideon]

17 hours ago, Ineedhugs said:

Lets say your addicted to pornography, alcohol or drugs or anything else. Your trying to repent but hear and there you just wide up giving in, then you confess your sin and try again and again and again.

Do you think a person like this would wide up in hell if they died?

 

9 hours ago, Blood Bought 1953 said:

Here is what you need to  understand and internalize.....God is not saving those who are “ Trying” to be Saved.......God is only Saving Those  that are “ Trusting”  to be Saved.Trust, or REST in these two facts in order to be Saved—— Jesus died for your sins and arose from the dead. THAT and that ALONE is the Gospel That Saves .It ain’t what you do .It ain’t your ability to “ suck it up” and to quit Sinning .It is in no way, shape or form what you do for God.The Gospel That Saves is what GOD did for US.Your task is to simply Believe it.It is a Gift Given to those that do NOT work for it. Like many people , you are the victim of Bad Teaching by Blind Guides.Please do yourself the biggest favor that you will ever do for yourself—pay a visit to “ getgodsgift” or check out the videos on You Tube by Andrew Farley or Les Feldick. Best of luck— you are in my prayers....

I think a far more relevant question is, is a person has known sin in his life and is not fighting against it, will that person go to hell if they die? 

Those who are truly fighting against the sins that so easily beset them are blessed because it reveals the Holy Spirit is there convicting them. It is when there is no conviction, when people think that grace has made their sins a non-issue, with no repentance at all, no real desire to stop that their heart intents are revealing a lack of the Holy Spirit dealing with them.

Blessings,

 Gideon

[ReneeIW]

10 hours ago, Ineedhugs said:

Oh well, i'll still keep on trying. I read my bible every day for about an hour and pray and ask God to help me overcome sin. Apart from that i'm not sure what else to do.

But thanks for the encouraging words guys. 

You need to go get help. You should not feel any shame at all. The Lord knew you were going to become addicted the first time you decided to indulge. Now you need to make the decision to indulge in behavior that will help you stop once and for all. 
if you can afford it, I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/FELLOWSHIP-Stories-Transformation-Spiritual-Friendship/dp/1701855275/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fellowship+sheila+weber&qid=1584817875&sr=8-1&swrs=8C90E4D4EA45C843D98F36F9657D872A

It’s not about addiction, but it has stories of addiction and overcoming them in it. It’s about a New York Pastor who is credited with turning New York from a non believing city, to a city of faith. He often gives lots of advice about addiction and is credited with helping many people.

Will be praying  for you. But if I were you, I would do more than just reading. Christ went to the cross for us and suffered. You need to be passionate and proactive about getting better and not harming people with your addictions. As much as God loves us, please believe that we do reap what we sow.

 

[Blood Bought 1953]

4 hours ago, Coliseum said:

Thank you for that Jostler. Each of us is being spoken to by the Lord in the way that best transforms him. What you went through to appreciate your understanding of His Spirit working in and through you can only mean something change-worthy to you because of your own experiences and circumstances; they provide for us certainly another perspective from His Word.

This brought me to the familiar passage of Philippians 4:6 (KJV)
^"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

This to me is a very invasive passage---to worry about nothing, which is the absence of everything, and while we are not worrying about the absence of everything, we are to pray, and leave nothing out (pray about everything) . How close a perspective I can gather from this really hit home when I was reading Vernon McGee's commentary:

"Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others.

Maybe you think it sounds very pious when I am willing to testify that I take my burdens to the Lord in prayer. I must confess that after I spread everything out before Him, when I finish praying, I pick it all right back up, put the problems back on my shoulders, and start out with the burden again. That is my problem. The Lord wants us to trust Him so that we worry about nothing, pray about everything. I wish I could say to you that I'm as free as the bird in the trees, free as the bees gathering honey. That's the way He wants us to be."

J. Vernon McGee's Thru the Bible - – Thru The Bible with J. Vernon McGee.

 

 

I have all of McGees “ Thru The Bible” books........He’s hard to beat.....a great Bible Teacher who “ served his generation well.”