We were bought at a price! Faith is more than belief. Love the word allegiance!

Andrew, thank you for highlighting the importance of allegiance! Mental assent to doctrinal statements is not saving faith. Justification by faith in Jesus engages the heart and leads to sanctification and transformation in Him. Following Jesus involves daily surrender to Him and perseverance with Him. We all need to ask ourselves continually, who is at our core? Jesus, or Jesus and something else. We are so prone to idols, including gay identity, relationships and addictions. Jesus asks for everything. Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23) “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matt. 24:17).

Bates also unlocked the Psalms for me, because in the Psalms, King David is repeatedly praising God for being faithful, praising faithfulness, working faithfulness in with mercy to the poor and love of the neighbor, so that "hesed" in Hebrew shows all sides of God's lovingkindness, faithfulness, mercy, compassion, Good Samaritan type of outreach to the needy, like in Galatians 5:6 where Paul writes that faith(fulness) works through love. As a kid who memorized all the common salvation verses, they didn't make us memorize Galatians 5:6 or anything from James, because people are so afraid to move away from mental assent into a physical bodily place where love happens, like 1 John commands us to believe and love, and not in words only but in deeds and truth. These overlapping attributes can hardly be separated from each other because they arrive in us as a set, a whole range of new gifts from above.

@PsychoBible

2 ай бұрын

He's given me words for what I've long suspected. My first major clue was when I was leading a Bible study on Romans in 2009ish. Paul quotes Habakuk 2:4 when he says "the righteous shall live by faith." But when I looked up the reference in Habakuk, my NIV actually said "the righteous person will live by his faithfulness." The change in translation from faithfulness to faith stood out to me. At the very least, it told me faith is not something just mental or verbal. It must be embodied. So, I've known for a long time that Paul and James are NOT in conflict like so many like to say.

This defitionnhelps solidify the definition of faith for sure.

good point. This is one of my issues with protestants

@PsychoBible

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, it's certainly a criticism I have among my own. However, I think there's a similar such potential problem in Catholicism, putting faith in baptism and communion so that there's no problem with the lapsed and nominal types.

@biasuzcaca04

7 ай бұрын

@@PsychoBible In my country we called those types something like "statistics catholic"

A fatal overcorrection.

@78LedHead

27 күн бұрын

You won't find one person in the Bible not named Jesus who became sinless. No one's as loyal to him as they think. The cross we bear is nowhere near as important as the cross he bore. He's a merciful Lord, and no one to ever walk this earth followed him perfectly. He will change your heart though and he'll perform surgery on you over time. Jesus loved it when people believed in him.

@minorsingingairhead

27 күн бұрын

Not sure how your comment fits with mine, but I agree.

Here's the problem.... all of us fall short in some way. Many of us think we don't but we do. No one is sinless, and if our works added to it, we'd just boast. Me personally? I don't want to be in rebellion to God, but you mean to tell me that a human even a Christian doesn't have things to work on? It's almost as if you're saying we have to become sinless or else burn in hell? Jesus is the one who justifies the ungodly. Scripture is so clear that it's not of ourselves. The holy spirit works on people over time and I promise if you ever think you've fully arrived, God will show you another area where you fall short to humble you. I'm shocked to hear you sound so merciful on Kevin's stream but I'm now hearing something totally different - no salvation for those who struggle with sin. I'm confused.

@PsychoBible

27 күн бұрын

I'm not sure where you're thinking I'm saying we must be sinless to be a believer. Allegiance is measured not by your sinlessness, but by your response to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Rebellion isn't just simply committing acts of sin, but a willful and informed choice to persist in sin despite the Spirit's conviction. I do not use the word lightly. I definitely do not use it for people who are actively struggling with their sin, though struggling imperfectly. The allegiance understanding of faith helps us avoid the licentiousness of liberal theology and thinking as well as the legalism of fundamentalism. How else could Abraham, who sinned so much with his lies and sleeping with Hagar, still be called righteous because of his faith? Because despite his sins, he would repent and show himself faithful to God. Then God gives him righteousness. Consider the context of this clip. It's part of a longer commentary on the Andy Stanley "Unconditional" conference, which gave mixed messages to parents of children identifying as LGBTQ, particularly by promoting gay-identified and gay-affirming teachers. These are not strugglers. Not people who understand it as sin and working on repentance but messing up at times. These are people delighting in rebelling against God's standards being propped up as teachers. These are not the voices the church needs.

@78LedHead

27 күн бұрын

@@PsychoBible I agree with most of what you're saying and it is sick what's happening to kids, but we're told that Abraham simply believed God and no other god, even when he wasn't so loyal. His repentance didn't save Him - God did. I'm sure he let God down plenty after repenting too. I just think we need to be careful. The moment someone thinks they embody the gospel, look out. Pride is sure to follow. Ferreting out sinners instead of looking in the mirror at the plank in our eye is sure to follow. The Bible is filled with saved people like David who willfully sinned. Christ imputes His righteousness to those who believe on Him. We all have sin we're not even aware of. Sin is sin, willful or not. I do think people should have a change of heart and live out the gospel but listening to Jesus, he was way more concerned with the sins of the Pharisees who thought they were good little boys (hypocrites) than those who cussed and drank and smoked. I've met gay people who bore way more fruits of the spirit than a lot of professing believers. The thief on the cross embodied nothing but faith in the one who justifies the ungodly. That was his allegiance - it wasn't merit based in the slightest.