Christianity Oasis Forum

[Upward]

Why does the Bible teach we are to confess our sins if we are already forgiven?What is the role of confession?

The Greek word we use for confess means "to agree with." When we confess our sins to our heavenly Father, we are agreeing with Him

We are agreeing with His attitude about sin; that is, sin is against Him, it is destructive
to His purpose for our lives, and it carries with it consequences that will prove painful.

Confession also implies that we are assuming responsibility for our actions. We are not
Blaming our actions on others. Confession means that we see ourselves in relationship to
our deeds of sin just like God does.

1 JOHN 1:9
The most often-quoted verse people use regarding confession is this one: "If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
Unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).


When taken at face value, the verse would seem to say that our forgiveness is conditional
upon our confession.

This raises all kinds of questions: What if we forget to confess a sin? What if we don't
Realize we have committed a sin? And on and on we could go....

One reason our forgiveness, insofar as our salvation is concerned, cannot be based upon
our confession is that we are not always aware of our sins.

In a hurried, insensitive moment, with a sharp word we can deeply hurt someone but be
Unaware of the damage to the person's spirit, how many of those can each of us claim?

In fact only God knows the real depth of our unrighteousness. He has made gracious
and adequate prevision for such actions.

John assures us, "But if we walk in the light as
He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus
His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7).

Again, our forgiveness is inseparably connected with the blood Christ shed for us.
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." -Romans
8:1
"For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians1:13-14

"In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory." -Ephesians 1:13-14


"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... I am convinced that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:35,38-39

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give eternal life to
them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. -John
10.27-28

the gospel by nature is a God-centered, grace-centered message which offers salvation as
a free gift, a gift without cost, through faith in God's work through His Son, rather than
by mans work

(1 Cor. 1:30;.John4: 10; Acts 8:20; Rom. 11:6; 15:15-18;Rev. 21:6).

Q: Why did God save us?
A: Because He loved us.
Q2: How did God save us?
A2: By grace; by an undeserved series of events enacted for our benefit.
To believe that a man or woman can lose his or her salvation is to believe that a human
being can Illustrate the eternal purpose of God!!

You see, it is not Christ and good works, nor Christ and the church, that save. It is not
through Christ and baptism, or Christ and the confessional, that we may obtain the
forgiveness of our sins.
It is not Christ and doing our best, or Christ and the Lord's Supper, that will give us new
life. It is Christ alone

God has plans for all those who were dead in their trespasses and sins and have been
made alivewith Christ.

"To hold to a theology in which man can do something that throws him back into a state
of spiritual deadness, thus denying God His predetermined purpose, is to embrace a
system in which man is in the driver's seat and God is just a passenger."

faith is not the reason God saves us. Remember, Paul makes it clear that love is the
reason. we are not saved by our faith. We are saved by grace. The instrument of salvation
was and is grace.

God came up with a plan and carried it out through Christ. We did not take part in it, nor
did we deserve any part of it. It was grace from start to finish.

Faith was the agent whereby God was able to apply His grace to the life of the sinner

Imagine for a moment that you are at the scene of a burning building. You notice a crowd
of people shouting and pointing up at one end of the building, so you run to see what all
the commotion is about.

When you arrive, you are told by firemen that a woman is trapped on a ledge three floors
up. Her only hope is to jump into the net that has been set up right below her.


As you peer through the smoke, you finally catch a glimpse of the woman.
She is obviously scared and confused. You see the net not too far from where you are
standing.

It certainly looks strong enough to hold the woman, and apparently, the firemen
are confident that if she will simply jump, her life will be spared.


Suddenly, without warning the woman screams and leaps from the building. The firemen
brace themselves to help absorb the impact of the woman's body as she hits the safety net.

As the sides of the net are lowered, you see that the woman escaped with only minor
injuries. The crowd cheers, and you go on your merry way.

Now, think for a moment. What saved the woman's life?

the net, of course.

No one would credit her with saving her own life. Fortunately for her,
trained firemen were on the spot who knew how to handle emergency situations. They
Formulated a plan, went to work on it, and carried it out.


But what bridged the gap between her need and the provision waiting below?
One desperate leap! However, leaping did not save her.

Many people have jumped from burning buildings only to end up dead on the pavement
below. The net and the firemen saved her.

So it is with faith. Faith does not save a person. Everybody has expressed faith at some
point or another. Yet not everyone will spend eternity in heaven.


It is true that the same woman could find herself caught in a different fire. And it is
Equally true that the degeneration of her faith in firemen and their nets could be deadly.

But a man or woman who has been rescued once from a state of unforgiveness need not
worry. For once 100 percent of a man's or woman's sins have been forgiven, the potential forbeing unforgiven has been done away with. The risk factor is zero.

There are no more fires from which the believer needs to be saved.

Faith is simply the way we say yes to God's free gift of eternal life. Faith and salvation are not one and the same anymore than a gift and the hand that receives it are the same.

Salvation or justification or adoption-whatever you wish to call it-stands
Independently of faith.
Consequently, God does not require a constant attitude of faith in order to be
saved--only an act of faith.

You and I are not saved because we have enduring faith. We are saved because at a
moment in time we expressed faith in our enduring Lord.

Man cannot enter heaven by good works because he is spiritually dead, and good deeds
do not impart eternal life.

Man is separated from God by sin-violation of God's law and standard. He falls far
short of perfection which is what God's law demands.

Sin's penalty is death - eternal separation from God's presence. And no amount of noble
works can remove that penalty.

Jesus came to earth to reconcile sinful man to God and to die for man's sins. His death on
the cross satisfied God's justice, paid sin's penalty, and provided a door into heaven.

You enter that door by faith in Christ, recognizing your sinfulness, and receiving Christ's
forgiveness.

When you receive Christ, you receive the gift of eternal life.

Receiving Christ means that you simply believe that He is God's Son who died in your
place on the cross for your sin and rose again from the dead to extend the offer of
salvation.

You can be assured that if you ask Christ into your life, He will come to
indwell you.


"And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He
who has the Son has the life;he who does not have the Son of God does not have the
life" (1 John 5:11-12).

It is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast. -Ephesians 2.8-9
"
Salvation,"Paul says, "is a gift."Now I don't know about you, but I have learned that a
gift that can be taken back is no gift. True gifts have no strings attached.


Once you place a condition of any kind on a gift, it becomes a trade, not a gift.

To say that our salvation can be taken from us for any reason, whether it be sin or disbelief, is to ignore the plain meaning of this text.


To place conditions on the permanency of our salvation is to say it is not a gift.

Therefore, placing conditions on the permanency of salvation is the equivalentof not believing Ephesians 2:8 or John 4:10 or other passages where salvation is clearlydescribed as a gift.

What we do with the gift is another matter entirely. The fact that I don't take advantage
of a gift says nothing about who it belongs to. It still belongs to me. You can take a gift
and bury it in the back yard, but it is still yours.


Once you accept a gift; you are stuckwith it, like it or not!

You say, "What if! give it back?" You can give it back only if the giver accepts the return.

In the case of salvation God has a strict no-return policy.

There is no evidence by way of statement or illustration that God has ever taken back
from a believer the gift of salvation once it has been given.

His love would keep Him from doing so. Keep in mind, Christ came to seek and to save the lost. Why would He take back what He came to give?

And faith? Faith is our way of accepting God's gift. Faith serves as our spiritual hands by
which the gift is received at a particular moment in time.

Again, saving faith is not necessarily a sustained attitude of gratefulness for God's gift. It is a singular moment in
time wherein we take what God has offered.

salvation comes when we realize that we do not have to put our trust in anything other
than Christ's death. We don't put our trust in our church membership.We don't put our
trust in our baptism. We don't put our trust in our service, in our giving -none of these
things.

Salvation comes when we put one hundred percent of our trust in Christ's
death on the cross as the payment for our sin.

In salvation,because it is a gift, our deeds and our efforts don't enter into the equation at
all.

And just as good works don't get us into heaven, bad works don't keep us out
because they are not the issue.

The issue is who and what are we trusting in.

You see, it is not Christ and good works, nor Christ and the church, that save. It is not
through Christ and baptism, or Christ and the confessional, that we may obtain the
forgiveness of our sins. It is not Christ and doing our best, or Christ and the Lord's
Supper, that will give us new life.

It is Christ alone!!!!

if we are to put down drunkenness and the social evil it must be by the proclamation of
the grace of God. Men must be forgiven by grace, renewed by grace, transformed by
grace, sanctified by grace, preserved by grace

To teach men to walk who have no feet is poor work, and such is instruction in morals before grace gives a heart to love holiness.

The gospel alone supplies men with motive and strength, and therefore it is to the
gospel that we must look as the real reformer of men.

I say to every one of you, whoever you may be, whatever your past condition, God can
renew you according to the power of his grace

~How is it possible that the doctrines of grace should suggest sin to men who constantly draw near to God?

The renewed man is also by God's Spirit frequently quickened in conscience; so that things which heretofore
did not strike him as sinful are seen in a clearer light, and are consequently condemned

I know that certain matters are sinful to me today which did not appear so ten years ago:
My judgement has, I trust, been more and more cleared of the blindness of sin.

The natural conscience is callous and hard; but the gracious conscience grows more and
more tender till at last it becomes as sensitive as a raw wound.

He who has most grace is most conscious of his need of more grace. He who is forgiven much, loves much.......

-General scriptures concerning the grace of God
Genesis 15:6
Genesis 20:6
Deuteronomy 7:6-9
Deuteronomy 9:4-6
Job 10:12
Job 22:2,3
Psalms
Psalms 138:3
Psalms 143:11
Daniel 9:18
Daniel: 18,19
John 6:44,45
John 17:11,12,15
Acts 4:29,30
Acts 26:22
Romans 3:22-24
ROmans 4:4,5,16
Romans 5:2,6-8,15-21
Romans9:10-16
Romans 11:5,6
1 Corinthians 1:4-8
1 Corinthians 10:13
1 Corinthians 15:10
2 Corinthians
Galatians 1:15,16
Ephesians 1:5-9,11,12
Ephesians 2:8,9
Ephesians 3:16
Ephesians 4:7 Ephesians 6:10 2:131 Thessalonians 1:1 1 Thessalonians 5:28
1 Timothy 1:142 Timothy 1:1,9
Titus 3:74:105:102 Peter 1:2 Jude 1:21,24,25 Revelation 3:10


I hope this study blesses you with the secure knowledge of where you will spend eternity.

[momof3]

I loveed and am blessed by this. Thank you for posting it. When Christ said on the cross "It is finished", this is what He meant.

God is so good.

Thank you again for posting.

In Jesus,
luv momo

[Upward]

My blessing. I'm so happy it has blessed you. Our Lord is so very gracious. God bless you and your family.

[momof3]

God bless you and yours, as well, my brother in Jesus

[ServeGod]

Thanks for sharing upward.
This cleared a few issues for me. Leaping into my saviours hands. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
GBU.

[Upward]

Amen ServeGod into the Saviour's Hands...What a blessed place to be...


"Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, 'Oh, why such love to me?'
Grace hath put me in the number
Of the Saviour's family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee

[Buddee]

Your grasp of Charles Stanley's teaching on this matter seems to be spot on.