Believe ye the word
Rom 10:9-10
(9) That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
(10) For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Rom 10:13
(13) For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
We have to be very careful with the word of God, you can say something as simple as what the word says to be saved, and get falsely accused of saying that you do not believe in taking up your cross daily and following Jesus.
And we have to believe all the word of God.
Eph 2:8-10
(8) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
(9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.
(10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
To come to Christ, we had to get drawn to Christ by his Spirit, and then we were able to make a decision to accept Christ or not, to accept the free gift, not to work towards the free gift, but to accept, receive the free gift.
And we came to him as sinners needing a savior, and God tells us to come to him in repentance, and to acknowledge what he done for us, and receive him as the Lord and savior of our lives.
It is a very simple gospel, and after we have done that in truth, we are indeed saved, have been born again, and now he empowers us to live a godly life, he did not empower us beforehand, he empowers us after we have received the free gift, and then we can by the power of the Holy Ghost take up our cross daily and follow him.
Rom 6:6-8
(6) Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
(7) For he that is dead is freed from sin.
(8) Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
It says that our old man is crucified with Christ, we either believe it or not.
That is what Christ did for us, the sin nature was nailed to the cross, the old man was nailed to the cross, and it says that we died with Christ.
It is not that our old man is being crucified with Christ, but that the old man is crucified with Christ, Jesus did not do a half done deal concerning defeating the power of sin.
But even though that is so, and the sin nature has been put out of commission, that does not mean that the sin nature is not there, because the old man can come back to the surface, and as the bible says none of us have attained in our walk with God, and that we die daily.
Eph 4:22-23
(22) That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
(23) And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
And every now and again, even though Christ defeated the power of sin on the cross, we still have to put off the old man now and again, which shows that we still sin, we no longer practice sin, but because we are not perfect and are being perfected, we still fall into sin now and again.
If the word says we are sanctified (set apart), and are being sanctified, we do not get to decide and change the words to fit our doctrine, if the word mentions both, then it is both.
We really do have victory in the name of Jesus over sin, and we are daily learning how to walk by faith, in our walk with God, and we are continuously growing in grace and faith, it is a life long process.