Born again Christians vs. "Christians"

[Heidi]

I definitely agree that we all have to speak boldly about whatever we believe the spirit is telling us. The only things that aren't opinions are God's words. But how we interpret them are opinions. I am going to give your opinions some intense thought and prayer, Royo. This is a topic I have always wondered about but haven't felt it upon my heart to pray for yet. It certainly sounds plausible.

[Left Coast]

Bob didn't know he had a bad heart. Just as most of us don't realize that our heart is corrupt.

Genesis 8:21  And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Gods salvation is based on giving us the new heart.
The question is what is the heart? That is something to look into when I have more time.

[geralduk]

We are saved when the Holy Spirit enters us, period. When the Holy Spirit enters us, He gives us the faith. We cannot "decide" to have faith or muster it up. We either have an intimate knowledge of Christ or we don't. I asked God into my life in 1985 but nothing happened. Nothing changed and my life got worse. I felt no different nor was I spurred to seek out His word. But then in 1989, when I was at the end of myself, He came to me. I felt the Holy Spirit enter me and in a matter of seconds I knew that Jesus was alive.

I'm not saying you aren't saved, Pilgrim, that's between you and God. But I do know there's a difference between intellectually believing Christ died for us and a heart change. As for claiming good deeds, how can I claim good deeds? If I boast about my deeds then they were done for me, not for God. Jesus talks about giving with the left hand while the right hand doesn't know what you're doing. When we lie naked beofre God, He doesn't want to hear "Boy look what I'VE done today. Aren't I wonderful!"" He wants to hear how much we need Him and how thankful we are that He is in our lives. He wants us to ask what more we can do.

Whatever good deeds I've done, all i feel is how much I haven't done. For example, we bought a beautiful house last year. Every day I walk around and think about how many people the money we paid for this house can feed. I mean it's not an ostentatious house but still, if I have not sold all my belongings and given to the poor, I'm indulging in some form of greed. I don't believe I am strong enough to do that right now, but maybe someday I will be. I can handle my guilt because I know I'm loved anyway which makes me strive to have Him lessen my sin everyday.

Not so!

"FAITH comes by hearing the Word of God"!
and we know from other scriptures that HEARING ALONE is not enough.
So that "HEARING " of the Word is with UNDERSTANDING.
Faith IN GOD therefore comes when we UNDERSTAND the MESSAGE of GOD!
But ALL men have faith acccording to what faith "IS" and excersise it every day wether saved or unsaved.
Faith only becomes SAVING faith when it is put in God.

To further the 'argument'
The HOLY SPIRIT cannot come in that which is yet not saved!
seeign that HE is HOLY and we are not being DEAD and unsaved.
But when the WORD is PREACHED  then He MOVES upon the WORD and QUICKENS it to our UNDERDSTANDING so that understanding what WE are and knowing then what God is.
We fing that we are in need of a SAVOUR.
and as the Word is further preached concening Christ and the cross we see GODS answer not only for our sin but also HIS establishment and upholding of the law.
and so understanding what we must do......REPENT we turn oursleves and our faith from everythign else and to HIM.
and call upon the name of the LORD.
and He in response to FAITH saves us.
and THEN the Holy Spirit seals us.
For to be BORN of the water is to be born of the WORD.
For  faith comes BY the WORD; it folows thenthat if we do not have the Word we do not have faith and we cannot please God "for without faith it is impossible to please God!
Therefore it is by the WORD ... AND the Spirit which comes upon the Word.
and brings forth the LIFE that is in it.

[Left Coast]

How do we get the ears to hear?
Doesn’t God give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear?

Deuteronomy 29:4  Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
Matthew 16:16  And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Matthew 16:17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
2 Corinthians 4:3  But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2 Corinthians 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
2 Corinthians 4:5  For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
2 Corinthians 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Luke 24:45  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
Ephesians 1:18  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

Faith is a work.

1 Thessalonians 1:3  Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;

So faith cannot save us.
This is a true statement:

Faith IN GOD therefore comes when we UNDERSTAND the MESSAGE of GOD!

The question seems to be HOW DO WE GET THAT UNDERSTANDING?
How does He ’move’ upon the word? How does He ’quicken’ it to our understanding.
We can have an intellectual understanding of our need for a savior. This should cause all sorts of attempts to get ourselves ’right’ with God. We can know we are sinners and repent the best we can from our sins. But unless God changes us we are not saved.

1 Corinthians 2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
1 Corinthians 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 2:11  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

The spirit of God MUST BE IN US. His spirit witnesses with our spirit. That can only happen because we are saved.
Keeping Gods commandment, including the commandment to believe, 1 John 3:23.Doing Gods works, including the work of faith. IS THE RESULT OF BEING BORN AGAIN.
God chose the term ‘born’ for a very good reason. There is nothing we can contribute to our births.
We are born a new creature in Christ Jesus. We are changed. For me one of the best passages to explain this is:

Ezekiel 11:19  And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

We are changed, SAVED.

Ezekiel 11:20  That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

NOW we can keep His commandments and do His works.
Gerald one thing I liked that you said is,

For to be BORN of the water is to be born of the WORD.

How right you are that throughout the bible water is a representation of the gospel.

John 7:38  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

[ollie]

We are saved when the Holy Spirit enters us, period. When the Holy Spirit enters us, He gives us the faith. We cannot "decide" to have faith or muster it up.

You all would have me believe otherwise.  You keep telling me to decide to follow your faith.  Which is it?  

One hears, one believes, one repents, one is baptized for the remission of those repented sins, one receives the gift of the Holy Spirit.

[Petro]

To Left Coast:
You asked where I got the scripture where Peter says Jesus went and preached to the dead. See 1 Peter 3.18,19.

To Saved_4ever.
I did not say that all those who lived before Christ did not get saved. (re-read that post). I said that all the saints before Jesus, went to paradise, (or "abraham's bosom"), and that Jesus went and preached the gospel to them during the 3 days He was "in the grave". That is why He told the one thief on the cross, "you will be with me this day in paradise." And then those saints were saved after receiving the gospel that Jesus had just preached to them.

Roy,

How do you connect, 1 Pet 3:18-19,  the spirits in prison;

With the verse that follows;

20  Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

And then state that those that perished were "saved" because Jesus went and preached to them, it is clear they perished.

Note Heb 11;

7  By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

and then 2 Pet 2;

4  For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5  And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6  And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7  And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8  (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9  The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Make this point even clearer, those who perished in the flood, or dies as the rich man, in the story of Lazarus, whom the Lord tells of, all perished

And from verse 9 above, it is clear they and all of;

 the unjust are reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished:

How do you get these were saved out of these verses.

I am asking, because I never got this from these verses??

Petro