I hear this from time to time. Grace is a free gift. All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. Except accepting Jesus into your heart usually means changing your life by abiding by a set of rules. When someone says "You need Jesus", they're implying you're living your life wrong. But if becoming a christian means making a drastic change in your lifestyle, then it's not really a free gift. You can't just tell Jesus you'll take the gift, and keep living in "sin", so why do people call it free?

(May 7, 2018 at 8:55 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I hear this from time to time. Grace is a free gift. All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. Except accepting Jesus into your heart usually means changing your life by abiding by a set of rules. When someone says "You need Jesus", they're implying you're living your life wrong. But if becoming a christian means making a drastic change in your lifestyle, then it's not really a free gift. You can't just tell Jesus you'll take the gift, and keep living in "sin", so why do people call it free?

Jesus doesn't live in the human heart.

I've checked.

Yes. There's a chamber of god in the Human heart. Search it, and know that it is true.

Quote:Grace is a free gift.

The WLB thought Stormy was a free gift.  Ended up costing him $130 grand.

It's a bait and switch tactic.

(May 7, 2018 at 8:55 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I hear this from time to time. Grace is a free gift. All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. Except accepting Jesus into your heart usually means changing your life by abiding by a set of rules. When someone says "You need Jesus", they're implying you're living your life wrong. But if becoming a christian means making a drastic change in your lifestyle, then it's not really a free gift. You can't just tell Jesus you'll take the gift, and keep living in "sin", so why do people call it free?

It all depends - on whom you get your information from. Some Christian denominations reckon that the determination of who will get to heaven is pre-ordained, others reckon that doing good deeds is enough. Then there's the lot who reckon that accepting "Jesus" is the way in.

This is your free gift lot. But as you say, there is a price to accept Jesus into your heart. You have to be sincere, and therefore to make drastic changes in your lifestyle, such as recognising what is divinely ordained as "sin", and NOT living in "sin". And there's another kettle-of-fish ! What counts as "sin" varies from one Christian denomination to another, and has changed over history.

But your free-gift lot also say that you get a free gift if you don't accept Jesus into your heart - when you die, you get a very, very long holiday in a nasty hot place. So not accepting "dear old Jesus" comes with more than having to make changes in your life, but failure to accept comes ultimately, with a punishment - eternity in hell.

Finally, a person who lives a good, clean, "moral" life, but fails to accept, gets the free post-death trip to hot Hades. The asshole who lives a foul, corrupt, violent and "immoral" life, but accepts "Jesus" at the 11 th hour, gets the free gift of lovely, balmy, fun heaven, (as the reward and part of the "grace"), in an afterlife.

If it's all B.S. we have no need to worry, (and I don't - worry that is).

Let's cut the crap everybody...
It all come down to the human condition.
Theists need to live their life with Jesus in their hearts to be happy.
Therefore no-one else is allowed to be happy without Jesus ... It's can't happen, It's not fair! How do they do it?

(It must be secretly hard for atheists to deny God constantly and pretend they're happy! The wicked assholes must have found a way!)

(May 7, 2018 at 9:00 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote:

(May 7, 2018 at 8:55 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I hear this from time to time. Grace is a free gift. All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. Except accepting Jesus into your heart usually means changing your life by abiding by a set of rules. When someone says "You need Jesus", they're implying you're living your life wrong. But if becoming a christian means making a drastic change in your lifestyle, then it's not really a free gift. You can't just tell Jesus you'll take the gift, and keep living in "sin", so why do people call it free?

Jesus doesn't live in the human heart.

I've checked.

Maybe the person whose heart you butchered was an atheist? Oops, too much information?

(May 7, 2018 at 8:55 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I hear this from time to time. Grace is a free gift. All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. Except accepting Jesus into your heart usually means changing your life by abiding by a set of rules. When someone says "You need Jesus", they're implying you're living your life wrong. But if becoming a christian means making a drastic change in your lifestyle, then it's not really a free gift. You can't just tell Jesus you'll take the gift, and keep living in "sin", so why do people call it free?

 It is free and the Bible teaches this with no doubt. There is nothing you can do to earn salvation, to gain it is to believe in Jesus and that belief includes the desire to allow God to change you. There are no rules to abide by that will gain you salvation, it can't be bought only given as a gift. It come through God's love a love no one merits. The love of God has always been there for the unbelieving, it is you who has to receive it into your life through your belief in who Jesus is and in so doing you have chosen to be changed, that change is a part of believing in who Jesus is. Even after a person accepts Christ there will be sin in the person's life for none of us can be perfect as God is perfect, but God will continue to work with the person so that much of the sin is eliminated from the person's life.

GC