Nark,
Nice try.
When the Matthean Jesus says "just do it," that must actually mean "it can't be done unless you first acknowledge me as Saviour and Lord, and then you are saved whether you do it or not".
- Matthew 9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
- Were the "righteous" that Jesus was addressing here in Matthew, really righteous? Why did Jesus give a riddle and then say go and learn what this means? Have you gone to the source and learned what that meant? What do you think that he meant? So, if Jesus called people righteous who were not really righteous and preferred the company of known sinners; is it too much a stretch for you to accept that "just do it" is a conviction as well as a tantalizing truth under the power of the spirit?
- John 16:7-15
- 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10 in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. 12 "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
The first part of your statement above is one of the main prerequisites of being saved. If you are not convicted, you don't know that you need to be saved. It's like some degenerate that rapes someone. To him it's not bad because it felt good at the end. At the trial he feels bad because he was caught and faces punishment. If he himself gets raped in prison, he then thinks rape is bad. Correction follows conviction.
In polite society, we are guilty of many moral crimes not so terrible as above and not easily punishable by law. But the process is the same. Conviction before reform.