Posted on 02/20/2017 5:31:52 AM PST by metmom
A common question for many is, “Can I lose my salvation?” I’ve heard both sides of the argument, and only God truly knows a person’s heart, but I can share a few thoughts. The reason there is a debate is because the Scriptures teach that salvation is a gift from God that cannot be earned, but they also offer warnings about falling away. There should be a healthy tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. This issue should not create a spirit of division, elitism, or theological superiority.
One school of thought suggests that salvation cannot be lost, as in losing your car keys, but that it can be left, as in walking away from it. This may be why Jesus spoke of the man who said in his heart “my master delays His coming; therefore, I will turn from living a godly life”. When the master returned unexpectedly, the servant was banished because he chose to turn from what he knew to be right.
In another passage, Jesus said, “You have left your first love,” when speaking to the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:4). James 5:19-20 adds, if anyone wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, a soul is saved from death. If anything, these Scriptures, and many more, reinforce the fact that we have certain responsibilities.
(Excerpt) Read more at westsidechristianfellowship.org ...
I think you are right MM. Even after Judas betrayed Jesus, I think the door was still open for repentance, and yes, Jesus would have welcomed him back.
Eternal life is gotten through the Holy Spirit:
"...every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." - Matt. 12
:)
The irony is lost on some folks. Turns into a works vs. faith, law vs. grace, free will vs. predestination battleground, which is in Hebrew a sedeh krav (שדה קרב), which = 611 = Torah (math, it's everywhere).
Valley of Decision. Tunnel vision.
Meanwhile, Divine orchestration is the method of operation by which free will *free chooses* that which is predestined. Has something to do with the direction of the heart. :)
Now humans, not being omniscient, don't know for certain what is the final destination of anything. Those who think they do will act accordingly. Those who know that they don't know everything, will also act accordingly. Therefore it is all fair how it ultimately shakes out. Amazingly simple.
As Elsie is fond of saying, Hmmm...
John 17:12 (NASB)
“While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.
John was a genius. Paul talks in circles sometimes. I do admit I don’t always understand what he’s saying.
Every day has its challenges. All are tested. No one is exempt.
Unless one is tuned into His Omni-Beacon and constantly receiving its course headings for the heart, drifting off course either to the left or to the right becomes deceptively easy.
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Paul was accustomed to discourse with the well educated, and often said things that his sheep couldn’t wrap their heads around.
This is particularly true for modern ‘christians’ reading his epistle to the Galatians.
Very few understand that epistle, because they also don’t grasp Yeshua’s total denunciation of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23.
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2 Peter 3:14-16
Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,
and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Peter wrote about this very thing:
"...in all his [Paul's] letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." - 2 Peter 3 (NIV)
...and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free... :)
We are never going to be perfect. We can’t be perfect.
God knows this and protects us from ourselves.
The problem becomes, just how much sin or choosing sin does it take to maintain our salvation. If we don’t attain salvation by works, we can’t keep it by works.
But if it’s lost by sin, then it’s dependent on OUR effort, not the sustaining grace of God. Then we have reason to boast and God is indebted to us.
And THAT is not happening.
It goes a long way in explaining why the Messianic process is being revealed outside of the religious establishment.
The Divine process is over, above, and beyond the battleground, so why publish it there. The message would be trampled to death.
Enter President Trump. He’s above all the fray. He’s the guy showing the way, explaining why lies are bad and why truth and love and unity are good, and how that can really work to the benefit of all.
He’s the herald. He’s the one sent to rebuild and repair the temples that are made with human hands (literal infrastructure, political establishments, the media).
He is the intro for the one who will repair and rebuild the temple that is NOT made with human hands (the body, soul, spirit).
If people won’t listen to the *leader of the free world* who says stop with the lying and the hate and infighting, what will the next guy need to do to in order to shore things up?
The clean-up has started.
Jesus own words tell us that it's a done deal.
If you choose to not believe Him, that's on you.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 6:37-39 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
John 10:25-30 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
Romans 4:16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring-not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.
1 Corinthians 1:4-8 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
2 Corinthians 5:4-8 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Ephesians 1:13-14 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
1 Peter 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Hebrews 6:17-20 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Jude v24"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy"
1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
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Sooner or later you’re going to have to get it through your head that faith is the willful earnest keeping of the commandments, and absolutely nothing else.
That is why faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word.
AS John said in his first epistle, “believing in” Yeshua is living as he lived, not intellectual belief that he was born.
Yeshua’s “own words” say that only he who endures to the end shall be saved.
There are no “done deals” except the trip to hell for rejecting the narrow path he described.
Twist in the wind if you must; it doesn’t help.
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Romans 9 is all about God choosing some and not others. Paul even anticipates the "that is not fair" question (You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”) and then answers it (But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?)
Yup
Romans 9:10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
That is what a clear reading of the text says; otherwise the game playing nature of the person would have pointed out; don't you think?
I think Jesus HIMself mentioned something about 70 times 7 at one point in time.
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