When I was first born again I too struggled with whether or not I was saved. When I began to realize that Christ paid the price for my sin through the shedding of His own blood and that it was paid in full, the light bulb sort of went on for me.
When we trust Christ and "believe" in Him, then is when He sends His Holy Spirit to live in us. We are not perfect at that time but our spirit has been changed into a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:16-18 "…16 So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:…"
Over our lifetime God is continually cleansing us as we confess particular sins. The Holy Spirit brings to mind things we were not aware of. When we confess them God will cleanse us, this is called growing in holiness.
1 John 1:9 was written to born again believers.
"9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Our salvation is not based on anything we do or not do, it is based on Christ having paid the penalty for our sinfulness. Sin is no longer accounted to us, when God looks at us who are born again He does not see our sinfulness He sees Jesus Christ in us.
Romans 4:23-25 "23 Now the words “it was credited to him” were written not only for Abraham, 24 but also for us, to whom righteousness will be credited— for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification."
Our "feelings" have nothing to do with our salvation. The devil wants to make us feel unworthy of Gods forgiveness. We are worthy only because of Christ, He is our righteousness we have none of our own. When we realize that then feelings of unworthiness should be counted as nothing!
The more we confess our sins as they are brought to mind the more we grow in holiness. If our focus is on Jesus Christ then it will not be on whether we think we are good enough, we are not, but praise to Him, He is good enough and we have Him living in us as our strength, helper, teacher and everything else.
The more we trust what He did on our behalf the less we worry about "did I do this right", it then becomes about "Christ did it all and I can do anything He desires of me because He is our strength.
If you meet those who say you must be sinless to come to Christ know this, they do not understand salvation. We come to Christ believing on Him, knowing that we have nothing to offer and that He is everything. After we are born again we still have nothing to offer and He is everything. The more we lean on Him in prayer and obey what He tells us the more we grow in holiness and the less we look like the world.
Ephesians 2:10
"10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
So many people try so hard to walk upright, they need to stop trying so hard, throw away their self striving and trust in Christ. He will work in us as needed. When we fail the Holy Spirit will let us know. We hear the voice of God, not in sounds in our head but in promptings as we are compelled to obey. When we fail to obey He will discipline us, but He will never throw us away for failing.
If you have trusted Christ it would be good to back away from those who will try to convince you that you must measure up to keep your salvation. We cannot measure up only Christ can. Yes, when we become born again we have a changed nature. We hate the sinful things we used to love and we love the things of God that used to make us uncomfortable. This is another way to determine if we were ever changed into a new creation. Has our view of life changed? Do we have a hunger to know God and to learn His Word?
When I became born again I could not get enough of God's Word. I wanted to know all about Him. And, as I matured in my walk I wanted to know His heart, as much as I could soak up.
These are indicators that we have been born again.
Also, there will be self righteous people who will not like the new you. They will want to remember you the way you were instead of acknowledge the new you. It is good to witness Christ to them, but if they persist in attempting to pretend you have never changed, then they must be avoided.
Anyone who is speaking works based salvation, that is that you must do certain things to be saved, these also must be avoided.
The problem with works based salvation is that it places the onus on the person to make themselves saved, diminishing the work of Christ on the cross. When we have faith we know Christ is going to work in us, it will be only His work in us that matters.
Sin will fall off in the beginning and more will fall off over time as a toddler moved from crawling to walking. The more we confess and obey the more we walk and then when we are mature we will be running!!!!!
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