rumitoid

I think people generally read the Old Testament morally, combing its pages for moral examples to follow. We need to be like Abraham, live like Jacob, and be a leader like Moses, Joshua, or David. We should fight like Samson, flee like Joseph, and stand up for God like Esther.

But most of the characters of the Old Testament are not good examples to follow. Abraham was a liar, Jacob was a c***ter, Moses was a tongue-tied murderer, Esther broke more commandments than she kept and never even mentioned God, and Samson was a self-centered, vengeful porn star ens***ed to lust and bloodshed. So if we follow our Old Testament “heroes” as Scripture presents them, we could end up in prison. https://religionnews.com/2014/07/17/christians-misunderstood-grace/

(Brother Lawrence: "I have no scruples, when I am with God." This is the essence of our relationship with Christ.) https://d2wldr9tsuuj1b.cloudfront.net/15471/documents/2016/10/Brother%20Lawrence-The%20Practice%20of%20the%20Presence%20of%20God.pdf

Most Christians have the "Do what is right approach," a course mostly followed by Conservative Evangelical Christians. It is a moral model. Preachers and ministers on Sundays and in Bible Study exhort the congregation to do what the Bible says, a foundation for the WWJD movement. There is an element of t***h, but at its core is an Old Covenant attempt at sanctification. Catholics may get a bad rep about works, yet this approach is the same phrased differently. It overlooks the spiritual reality of the New Covenant.

(Why strive for perfection when "to be still" is to know God. "Wait on the lord." My personal and with the body of Christ experience tells me this is very rare.)

(Everything to be done is to be done in active and continual dependence on Christ for the glory of God. Following a Commandment or a belief system or a code of ethics is not dependence on Christ, nor is resisting temptation. Trying harder avoids God's grace. Seek surrender, not self-improvement.)

(God helps those who realize that they can’t help themselves, not the reverse.)

The radical nature of and dependence on Grace is rarely spoken of and usually discouraged. There are far too many examples of tragic abuses for the risk, it appears. Plus the Mystics all claim such a relationship with grace, and they are generally not well thought of by mainstream Christians. It seems just radically self-centered. The charge against those will be one of antinomianism, or "released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law." And they would be right...yet wrong it is wrong.

It is never to control grace through restrictions and qualifications. If grace doesn't have the potential to be abused, it will never have the power to t***sform. Well-intentions safe-guards just limit our usefulness and God's glory.

Only one thing makes a Christian: that by power and grace we allow him to work through us in all things. In this way we will be this outstanding glory of God, a sure way for all to see a clear choice between the earthly and the heavenly.

Wolf counselor Loc: Heart of Texas

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

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proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

Did you forget to write something??

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

No.

Rose42

What was the point of that?

"Christians are to be without ethics, scruples, morals, or virtues"

That makes no sense.

rumitoid

Then read all that I wrote carefully; it is all there.

Iliamna1

First of all, I would like to point out that Old Testament believers were saved by the same mechanism as the Church age believers are, by faith in God's promised coming savior, and not by works. They didn't know His name, but there is that element of belief in His Promised Sacrificial Lamb. However, the Old Testament saints were rarely indwelt by the Holy Spirit except for certain moments, like Samson, when the Lord empowered him to pull the pillars of the Philistine's idol down. The prophets were indwelt with and by the Holy Spirit, including King David. But we certainly recall what happened there when he had Bathsheba's husband k**led in battle and then got her pregnant. He was also harshly disciplined for that and cried out to God "Remove not your Spirit from me." The OT (Old Testament) believers had a conscience, of course, and were given a litany of laws to live by but the law never saved anyone.
We Christians, however, are under a new Covenant, a covenant of GRACE. Of all the humans in history, I wouldn't trade my place with any other era, age or time. Grace is used to refer to God’s giving to us out of His love for us, a giving that is unrestricted because our former condemnation has been removed, our penalty has been paid, God’s righteousness and justice have been satisfied, and we are “in Christ” and share the love that the Father has for His own son.

In Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

But look at verse 10: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The Lord has prepared an banquette,if you will, of GOOD WORKS but we have a choice whether or not to walk in them. And how does one do that ? Excellent question.

I love the book of James. It's kind of a 'where the rubber meets the road' book. Chapter 2 has a LOT to say about the connection between faith and works. By your works your faith is justified, but still, salvation is by faith and should be reflected by our works. Like James stated: show me your faith without your works and I'll show you my faith by my works. Faith without works is dead." Note, it does not state we're saved by works, but that spiritual works should proceed out of a Christian's life due to the change in his inner man, his soul, as a result of salvation.

At the moment of belief in Christ there are several important things you received, that cannot be taken back. Here are just a few of them:
1) Salvation
2) The Holy Spirit
3) One or more spiritual gifts
4) A ministry or ministries (a purposeful life)

I believe you are saved.
You have the Holy Spirit inside you. You can choose to walk in fellowship with the Lord at any given moment . . . or not. The presence of the sin nature in the soul guarantees that the Christian believer will have a problem with active personal sin for the rest of his life on earth. This personal sin causes a deep disturbance in the believer’s personal relationship with the Lord. The Holy Spirit is said to be personally grieved, and His work quenched by a Christian’s sin, or by his attempt to live outside of the will of God.

While you do not lose your salvation each time you sin, your personal growth and effectiveness are stifled as long as there is a rift in your fellowship with God. This rift is healed when you personally confess to God the sin which caused the breach.

Confession of sins is not the basis of salvation. Jesus Christ was judged once for our sins, on the cross; and He does not need to be judged repeatedly for our sins. The basis of salvation is your personal trust in Christ and His work, rather than confession or any other act which you might perform to try to win the favor of God. Acts 16:31; John 1:12; Eph. 1:13, 14; 2:8, 9; 1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:21.

A Christian is always in Christ. Eph. 1:3, 5, 7. So confession of personal sin is extremely important to the personal spiritual relationship that you have with God.

God requires confession of sin as the means of maintaining a close personal walk with Him. He requires a continual acknowledgment of His ruler ship; and confession of sin is the means by which you express your yielding and surrender to the sovereign will of God on a moment by moment basis. The Lord wants you to have a very useful and happy life, and part of His plan for providing this sort of life is confession of sin.

The word confession in 1 John 1:9 is homologeo, to say the same thing God says about our sin.
He says three MAIN things about the Christian's sin:
1) The Christian who is sinning is separated from Fellowship with God. This is not a loss of salvation, it is a loss of communion with God until you confess it. David cried out "If I regard iniquity (sin) in my heart, God will not hear me."
2) It has been paid for at the cross in full. You cannot add anything to what was accomplished on Calvary. Jesus said "It is finished." and declared his work complete.
3) You have the Holy Spirit. Quit sinning. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the believer can choose not to sin. I would like to add that most of our sin takes place in what we think, also known as 'mental attitude' sins, some come out in what we say, such as lying, and some sin is demonstrated in activities, like stealing.
We all have a besetting sin or sins. Learn to recognize and confess them.

Having made your confession to God, you are now ready to start working for Him. You have a Spiritual gift. Each person's gift is accompanied by a ministry that is intended to produce growth for the edification of building up of the church. A new believer needs to seriously pray about what their gift and ministry is.

My gift is mercy. I can't stand to see people hurting. What the Lord did with that gift is to give me the profession of nursing and a ministry of hospitality, mainly in taking in children whose parents were in various crises. But every one of those children were safe, clean, taken to school and I'd tutor them in wh**ever subject was needed to get them up to speed, especially in math. They were all taken to Sunday school and church and we'd work on memorizing Bible verses. Some I only had for a few weeks, some up to 6 years.
In my old nature, I'd never had undertaken anything like that. In my new nature, as a Christian, it was easy to commit to, but I did it prayerfully.
I had a friend, James, who's a mechanic with a very practical gift of helps. In his off hours, he and his wife would seek out people who were stranded by the road. Sometimes they'd tow the disabled car to his home and they'd fix a meal for the stranded driver (and passengers) and fix their car and not charge them for it. And they'd give the Gospel to those people.
And most of all, Christians are called to love one another. In the inner room discourse just before the crucifixtion, Christ stated "The world will know you by your love (agape) one for another" The disciple John wrote an epistle I John Chapt 4 and stated "7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

I hope this answers your question. Lord bless you and keep you under his watch. And may your love be multiplied. By His Grace, Iliamna

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Is this a Christian.
https://static.onepoliticalplaza.com/upload/2019/4/5/t2-837822-images_27_.jpg

rumitoid

It is by God's power, righteousness, and direction, through his spirit and grace, that we are to act, not by our own understanding of ethics, scruples, morals, or virtues.

rumitoid

Yes, it seems you understood what I was trying to say. Here is my best summary: It is by God's power, righteousness, and direction, through his spirit and grace, that we are to act, not by our own understanding of ethics, scruples, morals, or virtues.