What About Belief?

[ALTACALL]

Try telling them John 3:16

I am by no means ripping on that verse, but does John 3:16 explain what Christ wants from us?

If you want to go to heaven it does. If you don't know Christ it does

[ALTACALL]

by ALTACALL:

Absolutely.......... NOT! Salvation is an unmerited gift from god made available through the blood of Christ and only accepting and ackknowloging him can you be saved or stay saved for that matter. I thank god that he took that pressure and guilt off me, wondering every day if i did enough. If anyone else wants to worry than that's up to them. As I said before, scripture can be found to support any belief.

I agree with that, so let

[ALTACALL]

by ALTACALL:

A job is not a gift. A gift is something given without expectation of ANYTHING in return. Usually unsolicited as Jesus was not solicited but given freely. What most people don't grasp is that salvation was applied to the whole world not a select few but only a few are accepting this gift and getting the benifet of it. John 3:16.

Why do we say that we were given a job to do something then? A job most certainly can be a gift, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Those last words aren

[tsth]

You are correct in what you say but you are talking about willful sin, the debate is about lack of good work. Perhaps even I have strayed off that subject a bit. let us get back to works and off sin.

No, the debate originally wasn't about "good works". If you go to the 1st post and topic, it was about those who sinned in the desert and were in rebellion. This IS willful sin. That IS what the thread started with, although it got off track.

I promise, I KNOW, because I started this thread.

In His Love,

Suzanne

[ALTACALL]

You are correct in what you say but you are talking about willful sin, the debate is about lack of good work. Perhaps even I have strayed off that subject a bit. let us get back to works and off sin.

No, the debate originally wasn't about "good works". If you go to the 1st post and topic, it was about those who sinned in the desert and were in rebellion. This IS willful sin. That IS what the thread started with, although it got off track.

I promise, I KNOW, because I started this thread.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Kinda like a rumor huh? never the same at the end. SO, okay, I will not talk of works again unless someone insist on it. Wayne J

[tsth]

That's ok Alta,

It is the issue that the posters must want to discuss, which is fine. I just wanted to make the clarification that the topic WAS switched, and I just wonder why? Again, I think it's because the original topic was too hard to acknowledge? I don't know?

In His Love,

Suzanne

[ALTACALL]

That's ok Alta,

It is the issue that the posters must want to discuss, which is fine. I just wanted to make the clarification that the topic WAS switched, and I just wonder why? Again, I think it's because the original topic was too hard to acknowledge? I don't know?

In His Love,

Suzanne

you'r a good person Suzanne

[tsth]

Thanks alta,

My heart wants to be....that's why I follow HIM! Because HE is GOOD!

In His Love,

Suzanne

[Guest man]

Try telling them John 3:16

I am by no means ripping on that verse, but does John 3:16 explain what Christ wants from us?

If you want to go to heaven it does. If you don't know Christ it does

This was the question...

But what do you say to someone who doesn't know Christ and wants to know the basic message of the Gospel?

Do I quote John 3:16?

John 3

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Or do I give them this quote?

Galatians 5

14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this:

[tsth]

by ALTACALL:

Thank you Suzanne, i Had become convinced this was a works thing, and I'm in agreement with you on the sin thing and you are right, lots of people don't want to face it because they still love a lot of what they use to do but only toned it down if at all. I'm with you on this one.

The works that we are supposed to do are to believe what Jesus said to do and do it. Not to do it is sin. Read the text Suzanne gave:

Hebrews 3:7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Remember that God had promised to fight with them and they didn