It is easy but you want Salvation as man would have it with all its laws...
No. It's just that we are saved from sin, not just from the penalty of sin. It is not a question of self righteousness, or self reformation prior to coming to Christ. That won't work. But the question is, even if God is 100% monergistic in saving you, does He work something in you that can be reliably looked at as a difference in you life. If you don't have the right to use your mind to examine yourself then answer me this. "How do you have the right to declare yourself saved and thus elect". You are basing that on something. If you say you base it on your faith is it not possible that your faith in in the fact that you think you have faith, and thus is a false, mental gyration? The fact is there is assurance in faith and self evaluation can become morbid introspection if you don't keep that in mind but the idea of self evaluation is scriptural and sound.
So there is a balance like was discussed above but still, it seems absurd that you can have reconciliation with God without wanting to begin acting like you are reconciled to God. There are people preaching that today and MacArthur called them out on it. I find the animosity against something so pervasively taught throughout most of Christian history scary and it even more scary when a lot of people seem to have no idea of what he was talking about.
. Eternal Salvation is God's business alone... You want your works Salvation you can have it... Its ALL Christ 100%... His Faith, his Sacrifice, his Work, and his Death alone by the shedding of his sinless precious blood that saved wretched sinners like us... I'm the recipient of my Salvation that I didn't deserve and their is NO way I participated... Brother Glen
There are people who are teaching that the above means that you don't ever need to change in any way or give up any sin you enjoy and can still be saved. The fact is, you can believe your statement 100% and still not say what I just said here. When you read Galatians chapter 3, keep reading and you get to Paul warning people not to take freedom from the law to mean that you continue in sin. "Be not deceived....." So you don't want to think that believing that salvation is all of God means you don't expect that God wants a holy life to be lived by us.
As a side note, the "easy believism" most of us in evangelical circles encounter come from the same people who insist that faith is a condition and the reason you are saved. There is a belief in Baptist circles that you decide whether you get saved or not but then, after that, you cannot lose this no matter what you do or believe. This is actually taught by the Free Grace Society. So, you have Monergist people taking issue with MacArthur as well as synergists. Monergism vs synergism is not the issue here, nor is whether faith is a "condition" and what does that mean exactly. The question is, did something happen when you got saved, no matter what your perception was of that event - and if not, can you bet your eternal soul on you still being OK with God?
