Evangelism is selling a dream.
I believe there are going to be millions of Catholics in Heaven because they trusted in Christ as their savior.
Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.
Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.
Are we willing to risk being misunderstood and maligned in order that truth might be told and men might be saved? Identifying a malady and explaining its seriousness are always the first steps to finding a cure... God has ordained that men come to conviction of sin, repentance, and saving faith through preaching. Yet how can the [Holy] Spirit use our preaching if we are not willing to expose sin or call men to repentance?
One of the things that I just kind of became very enthusiastic about, and wanted to learn more about it, is how God saves.
We must be holy, because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an 'extra' that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit your 'faith' cannot please God. It is not savng faith. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable.
The only saving faith is that which casts itself on God for life or death.
Faith has a saving connection with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope, and as we lay hold of it with the hand of our confidence, He pulls us to shore; but all good works having no connection with Christ are drifted along down the gulf of fell despair.
Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.
It is altogether doubtful whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help with no intention to obey Him.
God's redemptive revelation in Scripture is necessary to saving faith and peace with God. Faith in a risen Savior is necessary if the vague stirrings toward immortality are to bring us to restful and satisfying communion with God.
This truth may be handled either sinfully or profitably; sinfully as when it is treated on only to satisfy curiosity, and to keep up a mere barren speculative dispute.... This point of election... is not to be agitated in a verbal and contentious way, but in a saving way, to make us tremble and to set us upon a more diligent and close striving with God in prayer, and all other duties.
We must teach plainly that the faith which saves the soul is not a dead faith, but a faith which operates with purifying effect upon our entire nature, and produces in us fruits of righteousness to the praise and glory of God.
If you truly believe in Jesus, it is for life. Saving faith is a life-long act.
True repentance is no light matter. It is a thorough change of heart about sin, a change showing itself in godly sorrow and humiliation - in heartfelt confession before the throne of grace - in a complete breaking off from sinful habits, and an abiding hatred of all sin. Such repentance is the inseparable companion of saving faith in Christ.
It is not saving faith to confess Christ as true. Saving faith receives Christ as a Treasure.
Thy ignorance in unrevealed mysteries is the mother of a saving faith, and thy understanding in revealed truths is the mother of a sacred knowledge; understand not therefore that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand; understanding is the wages of a lively faith and faith is the reward of an humble ignorance.
Faith that saves has one distinguishing quality: saving faith is a faith that produces obedience; it is a faith that brings about a way of life.
Simple assent to the gospel, divorced from a transforming commitment to the living Christ, is by Biblical standards less than faith, and less than saving, and to elicit only assent of this kind would be to secure only false conversions.
And as the circumcised in the flesh, and not in the heart, have no part in God's good promises; even so they that be baptized in the flesh, and not in heart, have no part in Christ's blood.
