Do we accept Christ, or does Christ accept us?

The Greek language doesn't allow work and effort to be separated from pisteuo or saving Faith. Only the mistranslated words believe, believer, and believing demand that separation.

Are you going tell me it means constantly surrendered life?

A good sermon by Spurgeon..

The Vines gives the closest and best definition. " A personal surrender to Him and a life inspired by such surrender. Producing a full acknowledgement of God's revelation of truth."

Pisteuo is a specific act, (a surrendered life) based upon a specific belief ( God will accept, keep, maintain, protect, perfect, complete the surrendered life here on Earth) sustained by a specific kind of confidence. ( That all our hundreds of daily decisions support the fact that our life is no longer ours but His.

The trust is in Christ Himself, not His word or promises. Once Christ, His word and His promises become ours by recieving His Spirit, then we can quote and stand on those things legitamently.

The surrendered life starts the journey, maintains the journey, and completes the journey here on Earth.

I have it laid out in detail if you ever have the desire to know about it.

Well spoken post.

Hi Pisteuo, if our salvation journey ~begins~ with God accepting our choice to surrender our life to Him (as you've just said), then what do we do with verses/passages like the ones that I've included below? How can a non-believer go from not knowing God, and from not being able to accept or understand the things of God as anything but foolishness (because the things of God must be spiritually appraised), to trusting Him and choosing to surrender their lives to Him


Thanks!

~Deut

We'veve just surrendered our life to Him! Those things are nolonger any of our business anymore, they are God's business now! Our business is to continue to faithe in Him. God is not mocked.

The first time we respond to the call of the Father with surrendering our lives to Him, He's not looking for perfection, but genuine. A half measure will avail nothing.

As we through courage and tenacity trudge through, Christ perfects our surrender.

So, after one is saved we have to work to continue to be saved, is that it pisteuo? And why are not the lost our business? It's every Christians business to reach out to the lost. In fact, if you don't God will hold you accountable.

You also made this statement, "
"As we through courage and tenacity trudge through, Christ perfects our surrender." So what does "sanctification" mean? From the things you are saying it appears to me that you have to work to continue to be saved. Is that right? Did it every occur to you to just take God at His word?

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

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God turning us yes. That would be his faith working in us to both will and do His good pleasure. Without him we can do nothing.

Hi again Pisteuo, considering what the Bible tells us about ourselves before we come to Christ, how do we get from being/thinking like that (see Paul's description of a non-Christian again in 1 Corinthians 2:14 below, for instance), to having a paradigm shift in our thinking such that we are able to and want to respond to the Father's call? If we do not know Him, and we cannot understand Him or accept what He has to say to us as anything other than "foolishness", why would we ever choose to trust Him and surrender our eternal lives to Him

Thanks again!

~Deut
p.s. - for the sake of the discussion, I will include the verses/passages in question from my post above.
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Believing God not seen is a work of God. As always he must do the first works giving us ears to ears or understanding to what theSpirit is saying to the churches..

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.John 6:28-29

It is what those in Revelation like the foolish Galatian chapter 3. were faulted for. They had begun in the Spirit the hearing of the faith of God and tried to make it about the flesh of the leader. Like Nicolas. The Holy Spirit calling them back to their first love, do the first works believing God not seen...... the first experience of a new faith working in them.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.Revelation 2:4-6

Don't you think their were those the Father could call or draw before the scriptures were available to the masses.

That's the deeper truth, that with true NT saving Faith, God the Father could call anyone at any time, anywhere, and they could respond with a surrendered life. Knowing anything about God is not a requirement. Certainly, not hearing the scriptures first, then believing, what scriptures? I'm on the other side of the planet in the year 375 AD. Are you saying God the Father couldn't call out one like that? And, they couldn't respond with a surrendered life? It's a simple concept (pisteuo) for complicated people.

Hi again @Pisteuo, I suppose my final question is this, considering what the Bible has to say about us, do you think it's possible that the point in time that we choose surrender our lives to Christ is ~not~ the beginning of our salvation journey, that something pretty significant has to happen to us first (to cause to have such a paradigm shift in our thinking/understanding that we are able to come to such a point .. of trusting and surrendering our very lives to Him)

Thanks!

~Deut
p.s. - I think that this is the question that my other questions to you above have all been leading to

If that's true, then how do we know that we need to be saved/and that we need to surrender our lives to Him to be saved (or what we are being saved from for that matter)?

The call of the Father, repentance, a turn to the caller in our minds. Then the first act of pisteuo or surrendered life must be offered.

There is also something to be said about the circumstances we are in before and as we receive the call.

The call could be like a life preserver, which would cause the called to be more aggressive in their turning.

If we surrender our lives to be saved, that's not areal surrender, but a business deal. Like vending machine kind of salvation. There lies the rub, we can't surrender our lives in order to receive anything. It has to be a genuine surrender, to someone who we can't expect anything in return except mastery. A willing slave!

Great questions by the way.

Considering what the Scriptures say (for instance) .............................

.............................why/how would we ever choose to do that

The Bible tells us plainly that we can't recognize God's "life preserver" for what it is, that we steadfastly refuse to accept it because we are unable to understand that this "life preserver" that He has for us is the only thing that will save us, so again, why would we ever choose to trust and surrender our eternal lives to Him since this is the case?

Perhaps there is something else that needs to happen to us first, something that will allow us to accept and understand the things of God (so that we can finally begin to see God's, "life preserver", for what it really is)

~Deut