Yesterday’s post talked about our outlook on our life of faith being determined by how we think we got saved. If you think your decision saved you, your life of faith will be based on you. If you think you were saved by a work of God rebirthing you, your life of faith will be based on Christ.
So, is a man saved by not making a decision then? How can a man get saved without deciding to?
A man can decide to be saved (allow space for all Calvinist readers to vomit), but your decision is not what saves you. Allow me to explain.
Salvation is not something you can produce. You cannot rebirth yourself. Salvation is of the Lord and you must be born again. The Spirit makes the man a new creation and is placed in Christ and Christ is in him. You cannot produce these realities.
You can come though, otherwise God is lying when He says, “whosoever will may come.” Many rely on the earnestness of their decision as the test of their faith. “I know I”m saved because when I was 7 I said a prayer.”
This is their basis of salvation–the earnestness of a one time act, which should remind you of Jewish circumcision–“hey, we’re saved because we were circumcised as kids!” Paul had little patience for such thinking and I’m sure he’d be impatient with this one as well.
Deciding to go to baseball practice one time does not make you a baseball player. Deciding to learn where middle C is does not make you a piano player.
We know we are saved because there is fruit, there is love for God and neighbor, there is a growing into Christ, a departing from the things of the world and a transforming into the Son of God.
A guy does not decide to do these things; these are works of God in the believer. They are not works of the flesh, but resulting acts of the Spirit.
The just shall live by faith. It is ongoing, vital, growing, continuous and patient endurance produced by Christ in you. That is the evidence of true conversion according to Scripture. Saying a prayer one time is never once mentioned as a valid test of conversion.
Your profession of faith means nothing; the faith of Christ living in you means everything. Faith is a way of life, it is not a one time act. (Go here for a guy who says it better than I do.)
anti-itch meditation 