There are teachings throughout the New Testament that say that there is forgiveness of sins for all who repent, and agreement that all Christians do sin.  However, no author in the New Testament believed that a person could disregard Christ’s teachings and be saved.  The New Testament does not teach that it is easy to be a Christian and receive eternal life.  To the contrary, it teaches that it is very difficult.  Let’s look at just a couple of the many teachings on this:
Matt 7:13-14    (13)"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. (14)But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Likewise, in the parable of the wedding banquet in Matt 22:1-14, Jesus says that many will be invited to receive eternal life but only a few will be chosen.  Even those invited must arrive at heaven’s door dressed in the proper “clothes” (glorified body – 1 Cor 15:52-54) to gain entrance.  Finally, let’s look at Rev 3:14-22.  Here, Christ tells the church at Laodicea that he is about to spit them out of his mouth because they are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.  They had become comfortable and self-sufficient in their lifestyles and no longer relied on Christ to meet their needs.  They may have still believed, after all they were still a church, but Jesus was about to spit them out of his mouth.  Do you think that they could have been practicing Christ’s lifestyle of love?

We like to sugar coat our religion and make it sound easy to be a “born again” Christian, but that is not what the New Testament teaches us.  These teachings are not inconsistent with Paul’s teachings about being saved by grace through faith.  It’s just that these are qualifications that are generally overlooked.  These conditions or qualifications are consistently taught by every New Testament author, including Paul.  To get someone to repeat some empty words about belief in Jesus may or may not get that person saved.  We must follow up by telling that person what it really means to believe in Jesus and that repentance along with a moral and loving lifestyle are necessary.  Again, being saved is a process, not an event.  Being born again is an event, the event that begins the process.

Much of the confusion about how to become saved results from misunderstanding what the word “believe” means.  The Greek word for “believe” means to trust, to place confidence in, and most importantly to place reliance upon.  When John 3:16 says that anyone who believes in Jesus will be saved, it means much more that merely recognizing and acknowledging who he is.  It also means to turn one’s life over to him, to belong to him, to have reliance upon him.  It goes far beyond what most of us think the word “believe” means.  The conditions for assurance of salvation given by John are all tied up in the meaning of the word “believe.”  The word “believe” implies a continuing condition, not a one-time event.

We can see that being saved is a difficult concept to understand.  There are many, many aspects to it, past, present, and future.  We usually think of the present aspect of being saved in our everyday conversations.  Even that is very complex and involves a many faceted process.