quietthinker
Well-Known Member
You play with words (concepts) BB, and in so doing confuse the new and unstable in faith under the guise of 'insight'A lot of confused, poorly taught people believe sincerely that unless they “ Stop Sinning” , they can’t be Saved. This is what they take the word “ Repentance” to mean ......one has to Repent Of all of their Sins in order to be declared “ Fit For Heaven”
The True Repentance That Saves is the “ TURNING to God , with Faith in Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:22...... “ I told Jews and Gentiles to TURN ( Repent) to God and have Faith in our Lord Jesus) It is literally a “ change of mind” ( from the Greek Metanoia) .....you Change you Mind From thinking that you are “ good enough” to go to Heaven and thinking you can make it on your own somehow , to finally discovering that you CANT be good enough and you need HELP! BIG TIME ! You need a Savior! Then and ONLY then will you have the required Contrite Heart that God is looking for .....the Contrite Heart that cries out..... “ Lord have Mercy on me , a Sinner.....” Onecwill never cry out for the Savior until you see the NEED for that Savior.....
So now let me make my point: If one thinks that Repentance means “ Conquering or Stopping Sin”to Merit Heaven.....let’s go through that process .... I am qualified to teach it .....I tried it .....( spoiler alert— it did not work )
OK ....Lets pretend that I just got told by my Dr that I got one month to live ....it’s time to get serious with God ....I gotta quit all of my Sinning .....I have now officially declared “ I Repent! I will sin no more! Starting NOW! So......I start reading the Bible to find out all of the rules that I must keep and I give it my best shot ......I can sin no more between now and a month from now when I kick the bucket.I check out those Ten Commandments and for weeks I go without Murdering or Committing Adultery .....I grit my teeth , summon up all of my will-Power andxfind myself doing a pretty good job!
But then I made a big accidental mistake.....I got to The New Testament and stumbled across the Sermon on the Mount. Uh-oh. There I discovered refraining from murder and refraining from Adultery was not going to “ cut the mustard” . To continue my life of Repentance which meant to me in my mind I still had to “ not sin anymore” —— it finally hit me ! I could refrain from Adultery sure enough , but Jesus said that to just have a lustful thought was equal to committing Adultery. Well , a man’s gotta do what he has to do—— no more Lustful Thoughts for me !
Well, that worked for about 15 minutes.....in fact the more that I tried NOT to harbor bad thoughts, the more bad thoughts I entertained ......it finally hit me ......despite my good intentions , my attempts to “ quit Sinning” was a Sham. I could not do it ! The harder I “tried” to quit the harder it “ became” to quit . I was reminded of Paul’s struggle in Romans 7......I sincerely “ wanted” to be “ good” , but it just wasn’t in me..... “ Sin” always found a way to overcome the Best of my intentions....I had to “ come to an end of myself” ..... I could not stop Sinning .....what I “ could” do was to swallow my Pride, admit I was a hopeless, helpless Sinner who HAD to have a Savior or I was headed for Hell like a speeding Bullet! Now I understood how that Sinful Publican ( Tax Collector) felt....I had at last been humbled — All that was left for me to do was TURN TO GOD ( the REAL Repentance that God means for Salvation) and cry out , “ Lord Jesus, have Mercy on me, a Sinner.” Just like the Publican , I was Saved at that moment.....I went home JUSTIFIED —- just like he did.......simply because I “ Repented” ....I Repented God's Way....I finally Turned to Him ......God fulfilled His Promise —- “ Turn to me and I will Turn to You.”
So here is where the mistaken idea of “stopping Sinning” to Merit Heaven ( the erroneous view of repentance) can inadvertently lead to one’ s Salvation...If trying to conquer Sin leads you to see that you cant do it and the Holy Spirit That gave you the Self-Insight to see even “That” —— if that Spirit draws you with the CONVICTIOn Of SIN and the Awareness that you NEED a Savior you got Tricked .....the Route that you originally thought would Save you ( mastering Sin) turned out to be Lie.....but it lead you to your Salvation in spite of yourself and your self-Righteousness...... I you went on to put your Faith in Jesus to do FOR you what you discovered you could NOT do by yourself....you, my friend got “ Born Again” ....you got Saved.....Congrats!
God's authorship of Salvation is for all mankind.....for the simple and mentally challenged as well as those whose cognitive functions are reasonably intact. I say 'reasonably' because none of us have the capacity that Adam was created with.
If you recall what the angels message was to the shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem were you will note they did not confuse the issue.
