My faith is a gift from God. I have inherited it through my Baptism in Christ. Like any inheritance, I can choose to throw it away, to reject it through neglect.
I'm not assured of maintaining faith until my dying breath, and thus I am not assured of salvation until I stand before Christ and hear my judgment. Works do not merit me salvation, but they make me a caretaker of my faith and a co-operater with Christ in helping others to their own salvations. Jesus will not preserve our faith if we don't want it. We receive grace through good works and reception of the sacraments. As much grace as we can receive, the stronger our faith. When we reject opportunities of grace, that gift of faith begins to shrink. If we're not careful (working out our salvation in fear and trembling) that faith could be gone without us even knowing it.
Sometimes I think people think like we're afraid that we're going to hell, and it's just the whimsey of God if we're saved or not.
What we are saying is that if a person wants to say, "Up yours, God. I don't want anything more to do with you," he is free to walk away, just like in the parable of the wedding feast, a lot of people didn't want to go to the feast. It's an invitation, not a coercion.
We do believe if we walk with God to the end, we will be saved.
It's not an iffy process. We have great promises, and Jesus has provided us all we need to get there.
You could not have inherited your faith through Baptism. It took faith to be baptized.
I'm not assured of maintaining faith until my dying breath, and thus I am not assured of salvation until I stand before Christ and hear my judgment.
I cannot maintain my faith. Our Lord Jesus promises to do it.
When we reject opportunities of grace, that gift of faith begins to shrink. If we're not careful (working out our salvation in fear and trembling) that faith could be gone without us even knowing it.
Nonsense. We are sealed with God's Holy Spirit which is our guarantee of our inheritance. It isn't anything that we do but it is everything that He has done. We do nothing but thank God for His grace.
He is our Great Shepherd who watches over us. NO ONE (not even us) will snatch us out of His hands to the praise of His glory.