Re: Are you confident that, what you believe will guarantee your eternal destination
I'll give you a "readers digest" version of the process...First of all, one must here (from the Bible) the message of God's Grace (through a preacher, true believer, evangelist, or by just reading the Bible on your own) The Holy Spirit then uses that same message to "convict" one's heart and make them realize, their a sinner,in need of God's forgiveness and mercy...That self same mercy and forgiveness comes "via" the shed blood of Christ, God's Son on the cross...Jesus took upon Himself the "sins of the entire world" past, present, and future...Christ died, was buried and resurrected thereafter...Man's "responsibility" is to place his faith in Christ, and realize that he's a sinner and be willing to repent (stop from doing his old sins) with God's help... And trust Christ and Him alone for the forgiveness of his sins...And once this individual has placed his faith, the Spirit "cleanses" (sanctify's) the sinner and places him into the, "body of Christ" and he is considered a "child of God" His body (man or woman) is now the, "temple of the Holy Spirit," (because of the Spirit's indwelling of the believer.) And now, through the Spirit's influence, that man or woman can bring forth good works/fruit as the Holy Spirit continues the conform the believer into the "image of God's Son, Christ." It "behoove's the believer to continue reading and studying the Bible the remainder of his life...
First I want to thank you for you reply. I appreciate you taking the time to address my questions.
Not to be rude, but I must ask. How is your above answer to my question anything more than your own biased and personal opinion? Webb, a few posts later gives a different answer that members of faiths like the Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ believe to be the only correct answer, and though many is fundementalist and traditional protestant denominations share your sentiments, there are believers across the globe that would offer other answers and use the Bible to declare that yours are incorrect. Who's right, and how do you
know that you are right? Notice I asked how do you KNOW, not why do you FEEL convicted that you are correct, big difference.
The fact that there is no concensus speaks to the difficulty involved in coming to a conclusion that is incontrivertable, objective, even scripturally consistant, and ultimately right. If we are honest and look at the scriptures without using the prism of our particular believes and religious preconceptions what we will find is that various and oftentimes opposing positions have equal merit and the Bible is very non-specific in addressing this seemingly vital detail, otherwise we could all come to the correct conclusion rather easily because it would be plainly stated in scripture for all to see and there would be no debates about things like:
1. The plan of salvation
2. OSAS (once saved, always saved)
3. Baptism
4. Whether one must believe Jesus is God
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You mentioned the HS a lot in your reply, and as someone that was once totally convinced that God's Holy Spirit was dwelling in my heart I can honestly understand why you believe as you do. But I must ask you. How do you KNOW that the spirit indwells the Christian? We know that there are people of other faiths as well as people of no faith that exude love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, etc., yet they are not Christians and therefore do not have God's HS indwelling them. How is it that we can use the above charactoristics to determine if one has the spirit if in fact those qualities (the very fruit of the Spirit), are not limited to believers?
In addition, how does one receive the HS? Must one have an apostle lay hands on them as observed and mentioned in Acts? Must one first be baptised as Acts 2:38 seems to indicate? Does it just come upon you whether you have confessed Jesus or not the way it did with Cornelius? Or is the Spirit's outpouring totally sporadic and solely based on the whim of the Lord and thus there no way to know how or when the Spirit will come upon you and take you over whether you confess Jesus or not?
Finally, if someone declare that they have the Spirit, how can we be sure they are being honest with us as well as honest with themselves? Are there signs that will accompany them and varify their claims or is it based on feelings and a conviction that can neither be proven or disproven?