I have broken all of the ten commandments! Every last one....

[98cwitr]

1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

I have continuously put myself before God

2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

I have served myself, believed in myself and not God, and made myself a slave to sin, and worshiped success and prosperity.

3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

I have done this many times.

4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

There have been years were I had kept no day holy and am neck deep in sin

5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

I will not forgive my mother to this day and hold strong animosity towards her and the things she has done. I have betrayed my father's trust in me and have forsaken him on many of occasion.

6 “You shall not murder.

I have hated people in my heart so much I wished them dead.

7 “You shall not commit adultery.

I have been the pawn in an adulterous affair and have lusted after friends' significant others.

8 “You shall not steal.

I have stolen money and goods from strangers and those that even cared for me.

9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

I have lied about people's actions and gossiped about them.

10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”

I have found myself longing for things, material and tangible things, that are owned by others because of my wanting of success. I have found lust in my heart for my friends' girlfriends and wives.


I am indeed in need of salvation. Christ, please save me.

 

[faceofbear]

Same man. Even after having whatever amount of faith I might posses.

 

[RobertZ]

YouTube - God Commands You to Turn from Self to Christ - Kevin Williams


This message helped me a bit, maybe it will help you too.

 

[sealacamp]

1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

I have continuously put myself before God

2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

I have served myself, believed in myself and not God, and made myself a slave to sin, and worshiped success and prosperity.

3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

I have done this many times.

4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

There have been years were I had kept no day holy and am neck deep in sin

5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

I will not forgive my mother to this day and hold strong animosity towards her and the things she has done. I have betrayed my father's trust in me and have forsaken him on many of occasion.

6 “You shall not murder.

I have hated people in my heart so much I wished them dead.

7 “You shall not commit adultery.

I have been the pawn in an adulterous affair and have lusted after friends' significant others.

8 “You shall not steal.

I have stolen money and goods from strangers and those that even cared for me.

9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

I have lied about people's actions and gossiped about them.

10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”

I have found myself longing for things, material and tangible things, that are owned by others because of my wanting of success. I have found lust in my heart for my friends' girlfriends and wives.


I am indeed in need of salvation. Christ, please save me.

You are not alone in your need for salvation. We are all in the same place, as the scriptures make clear, some admit it and turn to the Lord for healing while others deny they need help and continue in their spiral of self destruction.

Sealacamp

 

[Future Preacher]

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

Don't dwell on your sin. We all have sinned. Yet Christ's blood is enough to wash those sins away and make you a new man. Once cleansed, you will change, but you have to believe that Christ will change you.

You can dwell on the past all you want and that will not get you anywhere. All you will do is continue in your sin. Allow Christ to cleanse and then allow Him to change.

We aren't sinless once we're saved. The difference is that Christ's blood washes away all sins...past, present, and future. So have faith in Him and allow Him to cleanse and make you new.

God's standard is unachievable by us. We all break the Law. It is impossible for any of us to keep the 10 Commandments. Yet God sent His Son to die on the cross. He took your very sins (all of them!) upon Himself.

Imagine how He must have felt. There on the cross with those below Him mocking and ridiculing Him. Every sin ever committed by every person who has ever/ever will live upon Himself. The hurt, pain, anguish that we feel was felt by Him way beyond our comprehension!

His very Father had to turn His back when Christ took the sin upon Himself because God can't look at sin. It had to be done so that we might be saved. What love! What compassion! What mercy! Wow!

So, when you are dwelling on your past sins, and think you can't change, remember what Christ did for you. Once you're saved, He doesn't see those sins anymore. Oh, and no one is beyond His reach. He died for all so that we might live. If you don't believe you can be saved, you are wrong. You are doubting the power of God and that's where Satan wants you.

 

[faceofbear]

Can someone show me in the Bible where it shows believers still continue to sin, other than Romans 7 or taking 1 John or James out of context? I see the opposite, but hear so many people say contrary to what I see in the Bible. And logically, if we say we are in Christ, and Christ in us, and still sin... isn't that placing more power in sin rather than the power of Christ? That is, if Christ is in us, it should be possible to conquer sin and continue in it no more because we are not of the flesh but of the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. If Christ came to free us not from only hell, but from sin, and we aren't free, forgive me if I'm wrong as this may sound horribly blasphemous and I hate using terms like this... but doesn't it make His sacrifice a failure?

By the way, these are honest questions (For some reason it seems like I came off sarcastic or something).

 

[MrJim]

Can someone show me in the Bible where it shows believers still continue to sin, other than Romans 7 or taking 1 John out of context? I see the opposite. And logically, if we say we are in Christ, and Christ in us, and still sin... isn't that placing more power in sin rather than the power of Christ? That is, if Christ is in us, it should be possible to conquer sin and continue in it no more because we are not of the flesh but of the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwells in us.

Let's turn this a bit~~do you know any perfect (non-sinning) Christians (or anyone else for that matter)? Is there someone out there that has demonstrated the sinless life (other than Christ) for you?

 

[faceofbear]

Let's turn this a bit~~do you know any perfect (non-sinning) Christians (or anyone else for that matter)? Is there someone out there that has demonstrated the sinless life (other than Christ) for you?

Does it matter if people live it or not? It matters what the Bible says, not what people do... as Paul stated: "Let God be true and every man a liar." As Christ said: "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to."

But if you want: Biblically, John the Baptist parents, David, and Paul... not to mention various others in history who were very godly. Perfect? No. But godly? Yes. The issue is that they still need a savior because of their flesh. And in various passages in Epistles, there is reference to "mature" believers which literally means "perfect." And the biblical definition of grace is that which enables us to live godly lives in THIS present age. And in Ephesians 5 we are told Christ gave Himself up for the church in order to cleanse the church to present them blameless. And Paul wanted to present the church of Corinth as a pure virgin to Him... the list goes on and on, biblically.

We are told to strive for peace with everyone and holiness without which no one will see God. I've heard people say, "That's the holiness of Christ." Oh, I do agree. But it is also a process of attaining that holiness or there is no need to strive. And then there be no need to submit our bodies to righteousness, leading to sanctification, it's end: eternal life.

At any rate, it doesn't matter to me one bit if no one I know, including myself, lives a perfect life... it's what the Bible says that matter. So for me, this argument, well, not argument but I guess defense (lol, I can't think of the proper word)? Doesn't present much of a case for me. It's similar to the people in Jeremiah's time promising peace when there was no peace because they were living in wickedness.

And this verse (not because of you -- just in general) scares me of all our beliefs concerning grace:

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude 4

Of course the second part (and) doesn't really apply. But it does seem that we distort grace from it's original meaning in Titus 2:

11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

and before anyone accusing me of teaching works based... I'm not. I'm teaching that grace works through us to perfect us. Not something that merely looks past our flaws. Yet again in Paul's words: "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."

 

[JM]

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

We have many ideas on what a person has to do to get to heaven. Some believe we must follow the “Golden Rule,” and do good deeds which will eventually outweigh the bad we have done, tipping the scales in our favour….after all, we are all basically good people…right?


If we assume we are good people we are also assuming a standard for what we consider good. Since we assume there is an absolute standard for what is good there must be an absolute standard giver. The Bible repeatedly states that God has given mankind a holy, universal Law, that is written on our hearts and our conscience bears witness to this Law. This Law is revealed and summarized in the Ten Commandments. When we look at God’s Law, we must understand that we have all sinned in some way or another; remember, you don’t have to break all Ten to be guilty of breaking the Law. The Bible warns, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.”

“… it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” Hebrews 9:27

Let’s look at a few of the Commandments and see how we fare:


“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Have you ever taken God’s name in vain? If you have, you are a blasphemer and can not enter the Kingdom of God.


“Honour your father and mother.” Have you always honoured your parents in a respectful manner? In a way that God would consider honouring?


“You shall not steal.” Have you ever taken something that didn’t belong to you (irrespective of its value)? What do you call someone who takes something that doesn’t belong to them? A thief – You cannot enter God’s Kingdom.


“You shall not bear false witness.” Have you ever told a lie? Just one? What do you call someone who told a lie? A liar. The Bible warns that all liars will have their part in the Lake of Fire.


You and I are guilty of sinning against God by breaking His Law, and because we have a conscience, we have sinned “with knowledge.” Isn’t it true that when you steal, lie, etc. you know that it’s wrong? Does the fact that you have sinned against God bother you? The punishment for breaking God’s Law is Hell. Eternal Death.


“Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail."


WHAT MUST YOU DO TO BE SAVED FROM THE PLENLTY OF BREAKING GOD’S LAW?

There is good news, there is a GOSPEL. God the Father has given us a mediator in Jesus Christ who is the incarnation of God. Jesus took upon Himself man’s nature, becoming subject to the Law of God, and perfectly obeying the Law in thought and deed for His entire lifetime on earth. While on earth Christ took the sins of His people upon Himself, and suffering the punishment due to all their sins paid the penalty by dying on the Cross, “…for the wages of sin is death.”

By dying in place of His people Jesus Christ became the mediator between God and man and revived in His people the righteousness, holiness and true knowledge lost as a consequence of sin.


As we find ourselves before a holy God we are convicted, by guilt, for breaking His righteous Law. The Holy Spirit moves in the soul to bring us to acknowledge our guilt and brokenness before Him and His righteousness. We come to hate sin and find Jesus Christ precious. The Holy Spirit convinces the broken sinner of the shamefulness of sin and then brings the offender to a place where they can, “repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

If you feel the weight of sin on your heart and have come to see the blackness of your soul in the light of God’s Law…if you have been brought to a place where you dread the judgement of a holy God, BELIEVE THE GOSPEL! If you believe that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins the Bible assures us that, “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

 

[Victorium]

You have indeed strayed off the righteous path and you're what I consider a backslider and your face is in the pig trough. Unfortunately I can relate to you.

It's true that no man can keep the 10 commandments, but when you are Born Again of the spirit your righteous by nature and love keeps the commandments (Romans 13:9-10). So you have to repent of your sins, pray to God for mercy and to be restored in righteousness, to love him again. Pray as much as your heart needs too. I was pray constantly for a while there and it helps. You sound remorseful and it is good that your sin burns you. It will help also to pay back the money you stole if possible, if you can't give the same amount to charity and also apologize to anybody you have disrespected or hurt if you can, but more than anything you have to seek God's forgiveness with all your heart (Hosea 5:15) and confess all your sins with all honesty (1 John 1:9)!

I also recommend reading the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) and start your journey back to the Father. Seek the Lord's face.

 

[faceofbear]

Can someone please explain biblical repentance so that it does not seem like it is a work to be maintained in order to be saved? I feel like if I fail once I've lost my soul :/ which, I fail so much, lol.... not that it's funny that I fail, it's the depressing type funny.

 

[Prodigal7]

I too am a sinner in need of Grace. If we could do it ourselves than there was no reason for Christ to die. God bless you.

 

[sealacamp]

Can someone please explain biblical repentance so that it does not seem like it is a work to be maintained in order to be saved? I feel like if I fail once I've lost my soul :/ which, I fail so much, lol.... not that it's funny that I fail, it's the depressing type funny.

Perhaps this will help:

Now brethren, because this little text puts the things together that it does, it is just jam-packed with wholesome application for us. We have here first of all a corrective to sinful unbelieving reasoning. "I have sinned." Many of us are in the habit of saying, I have grieved you Lord and I have sinned so often and so seriously despite all my knowledge, despite all my resolutions, despite all my understanding, despite all my supposed maturity, my light, all I have heard, all the sermons that have been preached to me, all the tapes that I have listened to, all the books I have read, all the times I've been chastised before and still I have sinned like this. I have wandered so far I am like a lost sheep. Therefore, I must not be God's child. I thought I loved His Word. I thought I was sincere when I made those resolutions. I thought I meant business. I did not think I was crying crocodile tears when I saw others disobey God's law and wept at the sight. I must have been all wrong. I keep perpetually straying. "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it." (2) I have this awful disposition to wander. All that I thought must have been real religiously and spiritually now I see in light of my present deviation must certainly have been false fire. I thought I delighted in God's decrees but I must not really, otherwise, why am I violating them again? But don't you see what the Psalmist puts together. Lost sheep...Thy servant...I do not forget Thy commandments. These are all right together. From the same mouth, in the same experience, he is conscious of shameful sin, and of a spiritual disposition. Present at once are shameful sin, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep," and sacred relationship, "I am your servant," and a spiritual disposition, At least I have not forgotten your commandments. He puts them together. We need to learn how to do that in our spiritual self-evaluation. We need to learn how to combine these things and pray the publican's prayer every day. We must never get so spiritual we get beyond the cry, "God be merciful to me the sinner." At the same time we must be able to express Paul's confidence, "I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day." "Chief of sinners"--we have to get beyond the place where we read these phrases in the Bible, and in biographies and we simply say to ourselves, That just proves how holy they were that they would confess their sins so humbly. When this Psalmist says that he was a lost sheep, he meant exactly what he said. He was a lost sheep. When Paul said, "I am the foremost of sinners." That is what he meant--it wasn't hyperbole. That is what we are even as true believers. We tend to go to one extreme or the other. We stay in that position of smiting upon our breasts in the temple with the publican and cause that holy smiting to degenerate into despair and morbidity and crippling spiritually. Or in reaction to that we soar with confidence and soon that confidence looks down its nose at any serious confession of the heinousness of our sins and says, we are beyond that now. We've outgrown that now. We are past that now. That is the other extreme. It devastates us spiritually when we go astray again like lost sheep, and because we have not had a biblical view of ourselves we hastily conclude that because we have gone astray like lost sheep we could not possibly be His servants. That is wrong reasoning that only keeps us back from running back to our Saviour quickly when we have sinned.

A Genuine Christian:  His Character and Experience

There is no one on earth that does the right thing all the time, according to Solomon, and I agree with him. I have yet to see any perfect person on this earth, except in their own mind.

Sealacamp

 

[98cwitr]

Can someone please explain biblical repentance so that it does not seem like it is a work to be maintained in order to be saved? I feel like if I fail once I've lost my soul :/ which, I fail so much, lol.... not that it's funny that I fail, it's the depressing type funny.

I am always took it as being sincerely sorry for your sin and admitting it to God. Of course He already knows your sin, and your feelings of guilt, but admittance is the humanistic communication that makes you as a person come to terms with your sin in a real way.

What is Biblical Repentance?

 

[MrJim]

Does it matter if people live it or not? It matters what the Bible says, not what people do... as Paul stated: "Let God be true and every man a liar." As Christ said: "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to."

But if you want: Biblically, John the Baptist parents, David, and Paul... not to mention various others in history who were very godly. Perfect? No. But godly? Yes. The issue is that they still need a savior because of their flesh. And in various passages in Epistles, there is reference to "mature" believers which literally means "perfect." And the biblical definition of grace is that which enables us to live godly lives in THIS present age. And in Ephesians 5 we are told Christ gave Himself up for the church in order to cleanse the church to present them blameless. And Paul wanted to present the church of Corinth as a pure virgin to Him... the list goes on and on, biblically.

Sure it matters ~ and you answer some of your question when you speak of imperfect Godly people rather than sinless Godly people.

We are told to strive for peace with everyone and holiness without which no one will see God. I've heard people say, "That's the holiness of Christ." Oh, I do agree. But it is also a process of attaining that holiness or there is no need to strive. And then there be no need to submit our bodies to righteousness, leading to sanctification, it's end: eternal life.

Granted, there is little within the average baptist/evangelical church that teaches the "striving" because it comes off looking like "works" even though Paul himself teaches about it often.

At any rate, it doesn't matter to me one bit if no one I know, including myself, lives a perfect life... it's what the Bible says that matter. So for me, this argument, well, not argument but I guess defense (lol, I can't think of the proper word)? Doesn't present much of a case for me. It's similar to the people in Jeremiah's time promising peace when there was no peace because they were living in wickedness.

If we can't point towards perfect sinless examples there may be good reason. Regardless of interpretation of Roman's 7 consider Paul's experience here:
Phil 3:10 –Phil 3:14 NKJV
...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

And this verse (not because of you -- just in general) scares me of all our beliefs concerning grace:

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude 4

Of course the second part (and) doesn't really apply. But it does seem that we distort grace from it's original meaning in Titus 2:

11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

and before anyone accusing me of teaching works based... I'm not. I'm teaching that grace works through us to perfect us. Not something that merely looks past our flaws. Yet again in Paul's words: "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."

My fearful passage:

Mt 25:31 –Mt 25:46 NKJV
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.
All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?
When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
“Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’
Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

True belief is more than adherence to a doctrine or statement of faith~if there is no action there is no belief and therefore no salvation. And I find myself coming up short...

 

[faceofbear]

I agree with what you said, but I believe that often times the confusion lies in that we are to worried of becoming legalistic. We never hear the Bible saying, "Don't become legalistic." Rather, we are to avoid trying to be justified by the law -- which is different than forms of legalism. In fact, I often think our "legalism" is an excuse not to be obedient. At least I've noticed this in my life.

However, I gave you biblical examples. Paul stated he obeyed the law faultlessly, John the Baptist's parents were innocent to breaking the law, and David only sinned in the days of Uriah. It's not a matter of if we are sinless, for all have sinned. But it's a matter of, I honestly believe, becoming close to sinless -- and I do believe the Bible teaches this. As John so boldly says: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.... Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.... He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.... And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.... He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."

Or as Paul told believers...

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

Christianity isn't just a matter of believing:
"And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment."

The way I look at faith is that it is not just faith in the person of Christ, though it is that, it is also faith in the teachings of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians Paul writes that love believes all. We cannot then, just believe certain parts of scriptures (the believing aspect) and ignore the rest (the necessity of love), which I find myself often doing... and I think we've almost made an idol of faith.

 

[MrJim]

Well the passages for Paul and Zacharias & Elizabeth refer to the OT law and not referring to New Covenant so not sure how much that applies. However I do agree with where you are going; I do think that by and large American Evangelicalism is a fat sloppy mess given to lazy discipleship, faddish trends and easy believism...faith is like picking a favorite football team; you pick your side, be a fan and put as much into it as you feel like. There are casual fans and serious fans and extremist fans but we're all fans of the same team lol.

All I can recommend is that you continue to dig into scripture and church history and don't limit yourself to what the baptists or presbyterians or any one denomination has to say...the church is much bigger than that.