“For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10:10)
The very question as to whether a believer can lose his or her salvation has divided Christians for years? In fact, how your church answers that question will often determine whether a visiting family will come back for another service.
I recently watched as the question unfolded in my own church when a young lady rushed to the altar at the end of the service to speak with my pastor. She explained that she had not changed her sinful lifestyle since the day she accepted Christ and asked if her failure to change could result in the loss of her own salvation. My pastor recognized that many of us spiritually struggle with the very same question and asked her if he could share her dilemma with the congregation. “What do you think?” he asked us.
If you’re Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian, your church doctrine does not believe salvation can be lost. In other words, there are no conditions. Once saved, always saved! In fact, your members hold hard and fast to John 10:28-29, which reads, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
How would those who believe that salvation cannot be lost answer the question that was posed to my pastor? While they are careful not to judge, the likely response is that someone who hasn’t changed their lifestyle may not have experienced salvation to begin with. After all, it was Jesus himself who said, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:20)
But if you belong to a charismatic or Pentecostal denomination, eternal security doesn’t make sense. There’s no way someone can get into heaven without changing the way he or she lives. Salvation and repentance go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. The Assemblies of God Website puts it this way: “Because we are creatures with free wills, we must be vigilantly on guard because the enemy of our soul, the devil, “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). In our Fellowship we believe carelessness can lead to apathy, apathy to neglect, and neglect to a conscious decision to sin. We often refer to this spiritual decline as backsliding. We believe one who backslides is in danger of losing his salvation if the individual persists in rejecting the Spirit’s call to repentance and restoration. Luke 8:13 makes clear the fact that believers can lose their salvation. It says some “believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.” Revelation 22:19 says “If anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life, and in the holy city.”
I asked my wife what she thought of all the arguments the other day. “What does it matter,” she quipped. “If you live your life in a way that is pleasing to God, then you never have to worry about it.”
She’s right. It really doesn’t matter if we continue in faith and grow in sanctification and holiness day by day.
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