Don’t think but that if you hear His voice, Believe!Understand what you are saying and understand that beliefs differ on the processes of salvation and what some of these process are and what they do in relation to our salvation.
And I have explained most of this in detail. The big picture is that if Christianity is about a relationship with God, and a person does nothing, is that a relationship? You might think that this is apple and oranges, but I contend that it is not.
Why do you call me Lord Lord, if you do not do what I say....then Acts 2:38...does any of that affect our salvation and or our relationship with God?
Belief as the sole requirement for salvation....There are those that believe that...a thought that Christ is real. And continue on with your life as if nothing else happened? Nothing we do matters in regard to our salvation. Interesting thought and is totally embraced by the OSAS crowd.
So what is repentance...if not a change in our life? A do? A work?
So what happens if we do not get baptized? And is it a do? A work?
So what happens if we do not participate in Communion? Is it a do? A work? I find this set of scriptures particularly interesting.
Although some try to explain them away, but Christ felt this was so important that He risked shutting down His ministry. He is talking to Jews and his own Apostles interrupted the conversation reacting to it strongly and His disciples walked away and no longer walked with Him
In this conversation Christ indicates if you do not perform this ritual that He does not abide in you and you in Him. He says there will be no life in you...this is contingent on if He will raise you on the last day. Now if you are saved and He does raise you, what is that like? So then they go on to perform this ritual at the Last Supper. Now this not an analogy because Christ says, This is my blood and this is my body. And they drink from the cup and eat the bread. I don't think Christ would have risked shutting down His ministry over something that was not critically important.
So if we do nothing but think...can we be saved?
No one had ever been saved by his own doing or workings. None. One can try his very best, yet to no avail. It is God who worketh and saves. The one to whom the voice of God comes, He gives the power to hear and believe, that is, faith. And through faith, he is saved by God.
After that, can the saved do just about anything he wills then? Of course not! For believing comes with it the surrender of his will to God. God saved him not so that he could go on sinning, but that, that he would do His will. That is why God predestined them to be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ who does the will of God, even perfectly at that. Now what God had predestined of them, God will surely accomplish. Nothing could and will change that. He will work that out in every one whom He saves and how it will be to each of them will be different, but nonetheless, each will be conformed to one and the same image, that is, of Jesus Christ.
Tong
R2982