If you are able to read you can read anything in the Bible, and I would recommend Romans to you because of your questions. I believe Paul does a good job of answering them in this treatise on the gospel.jaydam wrote:You mean I should put "work" into reading my Bible? I thought there was no work...JacobMartinMertens wrote:If you read the Bible you will benefit greatly.
...deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hopeDeny, live, look, flee, pursue... Seems I have some things I should work at?...Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
But there is no work to be saved. Do you understand that Jesus died for you that your sins would be forgiven?
1 Peter 3:18 NASB - 18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
I just remembered some words from the following verse in 1 Peter.
1 Peter 1:9 NASB - 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
The following verse from Romans may be one you would want to memorize. But you don't need to memorize any verses either. Reading the Bible and memorizing verses can help you grow in your faith.
Romans 4:5 NASB - 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
Do you know if you are saved? Salvation is by grace through faith and not of works. If you have faith that is good. Many think they are saved, but they have not believed the gospel. Faith and belief are similar.
Romans 3:23 NASB - 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23 NASB - 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 17:3 NASB - 3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Reading 1 John may help you because the following verse is found in it. It is a challenging read.
1 John 5:13 NASB - 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Paul is good for many reasons, but one of them is that he is the apostle to the Gentiles. Peter and Paul ministered to both Jews and Gentiles. Paul went to the Gentiles (Jews and Gentiles in Gentile lands, so the Gentiles (Gentiles are non-Jews)) and helped them to understand the gospel, with the result that many believed and became obedient to God in word and deed.
Romans 15:18 NASB - 18 For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed,
I don't see this as work to share with you. I know you are looking for someone to talk with about the gospel rather than reading something you are unfamiliar with. If you want freedom from sin and believe you don't have it yet I would recommend confessing your sin to God, confessing Jesus as Lord, and reading Romans 6 whether you read all of Romans or not. You must understand grace to understand this. I am assuming you are a new Christian or want to count the cost of following Jesus.
Romans 6:1-23 NASB - 1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
