neanderpaul wrote:
And I know through scripture that we can lose our salvation.
Really? Well, here's what I know...
John 10:27-30 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD!
(It's either true or it isn't)
NO ONE CAN SNATCH US OUT OF JESUS' HANDS!
(It's either true or it isn't)
SALVATION IS NOT DEPENDENT ON WORKS!
(It is either true or it isn't)
READ THIS CAREFULLY:
Hebrews 10:26-27 “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”
At first glance, this verse appears to support the idea that you can lose salvation, and therefore EXPECT the judgement of hell.
But in actuality, this verse is showing THE PROBLEM with such a belief!
Namely...
That if your SALVATION was dependent upon whether you "kept on sinning" or not, there is a BIG PROBLEM.... "No sacrifice for sins is left".
Christ cannot die... AGAIN... for you, to fix your new need of a Savior, all over again.
NO ONE, and that means NO ONE, not even ourselves, can Snatch us from Christ's hands, or SEAPARATE us from the love of God once we have it.
You have been deceived.
I pray that you are truly saved. It's hard for me to know. Anyone believing in their own efforts for SALVATION or for MAINTAINING that salvation, is very likely to be lost, and to be the one that Jesus warns of... The one who did works in Jesus' name, the one who had a FORM OF GODLINESS, but denies the power of it's origin, the apostate churches, which APPEAR godly, but in the final hour, it is clear that they were putting on a SHOW, and that their HEARTS were not with God's heart. They were modern pharisees, totally in control (they think) of their own destiny by WHAT THEY DO, or DO NOT DO, rather than humbling themselves before God's throne, and HIM ALONE, being the power in their lives.
Ephesians 2:9 "....so that no one can boast"
The only way to INSURE that we cannot boast, is that we literally had NOTHING to do, from our own efforts, to OBTAIN salvation, nor to MAINTAIN salvation.
How is this possible?
Because ALL SIN comes from one source...
Being the Lord of my OWN LIFE, rather than GOD, MY CREATOR being the Lord of my life.
That's it. Period. Nothing more than that. That ONE SINGLE problem, is where ALL OTHER PROBLEMS come from.
The first sin in HISTORY, was Lucifer wanting to be Lord of his own life.
The first sin by HUMANS... was Adam and Eve wanting to be Lord of their own lives.
Coincidence?
Of course not.
IT IS - WHAT ALL SIN COMES FROM.
The Bible is EXPRESSLY AND PERFECTLY CLEAR, that ONLY GOD is the Savior, no other.
If I WORK for my salvation... if I WORK to maintain my own salvation...
"I AM MY OWN SAVIOR"
If I am my own Savior, and only God can save, then "I AM MY OWN GOD" and I have reversed the roles of Creator and created being. And I am REPEATING the sins of Lucifer first, and then Eve and Adam after him.
That is the statement a works-based person is literally telling God...
"I AM GOD" because "I AM SAVING MYSELF or MAINTAINING MY OWN SALVATION (same thing) BY MY OWN EFFORTS!"
Which is EXACTLY where the heart of boasting (Eph 2:9) comes from.
OF COURSE I will be proud of myself if I am following every jot, every tit in the law. It's like balancing on a railroad track and going as far as you can... I BEAT YOU BUDDY!!! I WENT FARTHER THAN YOU!!! HA HA... I WIN... I FEEL GREAT!!!
But we are STILL on railroad tracks dumbass!
No one can balance on them forever.
And a train may very well come along and crush us, even if were possible.
It is a balancing act that will result in FAILURE. Because it CANNOT be maintained FOREVER as long as we have PHYSICAL BODIES!
Reflect on this:
SIN IS NOT POSSIBLE once separated from a physical existence.
It is the NATURE of the physical world, that leads to sin.
Without it, WE WILL NOT SIN. PERIOD!
You and others with similar beliefs, fear the truth of Salvation being... TRULY BY GRACE ALONE, because it seems an INVITATION to sin, without fear. "Oh, I'm saved, so why not screw my neighbor's wife, and get drunk every night of the week... steal something if I have need of it... etc..." because I am saved anyway, and will not lose it... so I have no consequence!
But this is NOT A TRUE understanding of these things.
1) SOMEONE TRULY SAVED WILL NOT FEEL SUCH A THING. Once saved, the conscience becomes so strong, that we are CRUSHED by the sins we fall into. CRUSHED by our own conscience. It is UNBEARABLE to continue it as a lifestyle. We may sin, we may fall away for awhile, but we will not maintain it forever... it is TOO PAINFUL to the conscience now inside us. Like a high pitched noise to a dog, and the closer he gets to it, and the longer he stays, the more unbearable it becomes. We can't do it either. IT HURTS TOO MUCH. IT IS UNBEARABLE, and ONLY GETS MORE SO, the longer we stay away from what our conscience is CONSTANTLY drawing us back to.
2) THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES! Not the least of which is PHYSICAL DEATH, where we have temporarily lost God's protection, and can then forfeit our Earthly lives, or suffer some other consequence, because we are muting God's voice, and therefore miss, when He is trying to pull us AWAY from such dangerous situations. There is also the loss of Heavenly rewards and blessings, crowns and such (although these are metaphorical)
3) ONCE SEPARATED FROM THE PHYSICAL WORLD, we can no longer sin PERIOD. Not even little ones. It is the FLESH that leads us to sin. We over-eat, we drink too much alcohol, we are tempted by our neighbor's wife, we steal someone's possessions cause we want what they physically POSSESS.
Paul's statement above, that ONCE SAVED, it is not HIM (PAUL) that is now sinning, but HIS FLESHLY SIN NATURE doing the sinning, may seem a matter of semantics to some, but it is actually very profound.
Paul discovered what I also have.
That... IT IS FLESH... pulling us toward sin, and that there is a DIFFERENCE in the laws my SPIRIT serves and the ones my BODY serves. My body gets the urge for sex, EVEN IF I DON'T WANT IT TO!!!!
This is VERY IMPORTANT.
This shows quite clearly that there are in essence... TWO BEINGS that make us up... one being our flesh (which has it's own mind) and the second being our SPIRIT which is our true self, the one impervious to physical things.
How can I be divided in myself?
And yet, WE ALL, experience this anomaly.
The Apostle Paul is not saying that he "dabbles" in sin (hobby) no sir... he claims to be a SLAVE to it, my friends. The one who claims to be least among the Apostles, and yet who in fact is GREATEST among them, concerning works done, the movement spread through the world, the scriptures left behind for us to learn from.... NO EARTHLY MAN HAS DONE MORE for the Christian Faith than the Apostle Paul.
And yet, he is a "SLAVE" (his words) to it.
A slave to it.
His body lives it as a LIFESTYLE.
Yet, the Apostle Paul (unlike our Paul ) understands that this IS NOT what he DESIRES TO DO. His heart DOES NOT WANT to sin in his body, but he CANNOT HELP HIMSELF... there is ANOTHER LAW at work in his flesh, as contrasted with His SPIRIT (which is redeemed and saved, and MAINTAINED FOREVER by the one who now CONTROLS it... Our Savior, God, who is "Now Finally" - LORD OF OUR LIVES, which is what frees us from sin, from hell, from being slaves to sin... IN OUR HEARTS TOO.)
ALL PEOPLE ARE SLAVES TO THE FLESH.
We are animals in our flesh.
But the REDEEMED are no longer slaves to sin IN OUR HEARTS!
The lost CONTINUE BEING enslaved to sin in their FLESH -AND- IN THEIR HEARTS!
Which is why the SAVED PERSON feels a sexual urge, a "natural" urge (where the flesh is concerned anyway) and He FIGHTS WITHIN HIMSELF to deny it. To walk away, and not to succumb to his BODY'S WILL.
But the LOST PERSON relishes the urges of the flesh, and because they are "natural" he uses this to JUSTIFY the EVIL IN HIS HEART which cares NOT for what is right or wrong, but only cares about WHAT HE DESIRES FOR HIMSELF! NO MATTER HOW IT AFFECTS OTHERS, and eventually... THE WORLD!!!
.
*´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` ¤ CRAIG MAXIM
Facebook: http://facebook.com/craigmaxim
MySpace: http://myspace.com/craigmaxim
Reverb Nation: http://reverbnation.com/craigmaxim
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` ¤ CRAIG MAXIM
Facebook: http://facebook.com/craigmaxim
MySpace: http://myspace.com/craigmaxim
Reverb Nation: http://reverbnation.com/craigmaxim