Featured How did you come to believe?

By the holy spirit quickening me, as when I heard about jesus and how he did in my plaxce, for my sins, and the Spirit made that real and personal to me, he openned my heart and mind and gave me the means to receive jesus thru faith!

 

:thumbs: Zactly. Jesus Christ has been my hero literally for as long as I can remember.

 

Actually brother, it says.....

John1:12-13, "
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

......we believe and then we are quickened.

 

Are you married brother? Or can't you remember?

 

DHK,without dancing -- please tell us if you still hold to the things I have referenced from your past remarks on the subject.

 

The part of this post that is germane to the conversation, the Bible and the OP, I have already answered.

The ridiculous and slanderous illogical accusation, I have ignored.

On that note, you also have ignored your own testimony.
Perhaps I should word it this way now. If you are saved when and how were you saved.

I say it that way because most believers rejoice in their salvation and are glad to give their testimony. Why so reluctant?

 

Who are the one that are actually able to receive him and get saved by him though?


They are the ones who were forappointed by God to believe unto His name!

 

The main problem with the concept of "getting saved" is that the entire New Testament was written about first generation Christians. There are no N.T. examples of second generation Christians being saved. Every single convert to Christianity was a former Jew, a former pagan or a former unbeliever. There had to be a spiritual transformation of these people, i.e., a time when they came to believe. We see the same thing today among persons who come to a knowledge of Jesus and their giving over their lives to Him. It is truly a crisis experience for them.

However, for those who have loved and trusted Jesus as long as they have any conscious memory, the idea of "coming to believe" is absurd. It is a flaw in evangelical thought that needs to be addressed and discarded.

 

Every person is an unbeliever, pagan, etc., in their beliefs before they trusted Christ. If there never was an actual time when they came to Christ as a lost sinner then they are still lost. Jesus came to save the lost. Until a person realizes his lost and sinful condition and is willing to confess that to God, Himself a needy sinner, condemned and on His way to God; a criminal in God's sight, he cannot be saved.
We are all worthy of God's wrath and condemnation. There is not one thing that any of us have ever done to merit any good in God's eyes. All of our works are as filthy rags in His sight. The very reason He died was because of our great ungodliness, rebelliousness, and wickedness against God.
Therefore you must come willingly to Christ knowing full well of that great sinfulness and the awful need you have for a Savior to take away the terrible burden of sin that you carry that only Christ alone can forgive. Not to realize that there was such a day in your history, where you, a criminal before God, were pardoned and set free from the guilt and power of sin, is unfathomable.

 

DHK, that's just crazy talk. Most people make a public profession of faith. I did. I remember it well. But did I have any more allegiance to Jesus afterward than I did before? No way. To believe you have to have that crisis experience is a grave error that you get by trying to imitate New Testament Christians, who were all first generation Christians. I am not a first generation Christian (and neither are you).

 

There is no difference between a first generation Christian and a twenty-first generation except for twenty centuries of time. When a Muslim turns to Christ he endures the same persecution that a Jew did back in the first century. His family disowns him, then persecutes him, and even tries to kill him. There is intense persecution of converts from Islam especially in Islamic nations. Properties are confiscated, belongings are burned and believers are both persecuted, tortured and murdered. In spite of it all they remain true to Christ.

Christ did not come to save the righteous but sinners.
He said it himself. Unless you realize that you are that sinner you cannot be saved. That is the main barrier preventing so many from being saved. They think they already are because they were raised in a "Christian" family. There is no such thing as "Christian" family. We are all born in sin; born with a sin nature; a nature that water cannot cleanse but only the blood of Jesus can. That is why one must "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved." His blood cleanses what baptism cannot cleanse (and never could). It is simply water.

Every person is born a sinner, and every sinner needs to come to Christ.

 

the person MUST be convicted and convinced by the Person of the Holy Spirit that they are sinners, that they can do NOTHING to get right with God apart from trusting/receiving Jesus thru faith!

The persons that claim that "I have always believed, cannot remember ever asking Jesus to save me" are the Ones they need to make sure of their status before the Lord!

For many of them have the ole salvation of Mommy and daddy experience covering me going on!

 

I thought you were a Calvinist which does not believe Jesus needs to be asked for salvation?

 

most calvinists would say that Jesus still must be received thru faith in order to have the sinner become a saint!

 

That does not address my question...

 

God granted you the means to be saved, and the Lord Jesus to die for your sins, so did you ask him to be saved?

 

God granted all the means to be saved, and the Lord Jesus to die for the sins of the world, yes, I asked Jesus to save me.