Once in grace, always in grace???

A young girl, who had lived her life being told she had to follow the laws of Moses in order to get to heaven, one day found about "grace." Initially, she was overjoyed with her newfound salvation; but then she worried, just like you've expressed.

She told her pastor, "This is a dangerous doctrine!"

"Why?" he asked.

She replied, "Won't people just go out and do whatever they want?"

The pastor thought about it, and asked, "Are you going to run out and start doing those things?"

"Oh, no!" she replied immediately.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I love Jesus," she replied quickly, and then immediately understood the answer.

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Now, I believe in once saved, always saved (or OSAS, as it's referred to around here). But I also believe that people who "get saved" just to ensure their spot in heaven, and then jump right back into whatever they were doing, need to examine if they're really saved or were just looking for an insurance policy....

 

I was saved at the age of 10, I can remember the place, where I was sitting, the church, what happened and everything. I backslid, fell out of fellowship, whatever you want to call it when I was around 14. I was not a popular kid in school due to my weight probably. Better yet, it was probably the cheerful attitude that Christ had given me when I got saved. So I found myself trying to fit in and I fitted in the wrong crowd. Anyway, I was around 29 when I came back to the Lord. It was the story of another prodigal son(God put that experience in His word for a good reason). It was so wonderful to come home. The thing was, God did not say, "look at all that stuff you did." He said, "welcome home my son." I thank God that I was saved when I was 10 and I thank God that it is His grace that sustains us. I do believe in OSAS. It is always funny to see someone get saved and the very next day go back to the same old things, but it is not for me to judge. I believe that when a person accepts Christ as their personal Saviour, some child of God should carry them under their wing for a while.

 

Because getting saved is not a philosophy, a concept, or an attitude, or even something YOU do. Salvation is something God does. He changes you into a new creature, He indwells you, He places you as His child. He is not a magic Genie who performs at the snap of your fingers, you don't get saved just because you have taken a notion to. It is a real deal, something happens to you when you get saved, something real. You are placed into the family of God, and as any good parent, He takes it upon Himself to raise you in the manner that He thinks is best. He tells us how we ought to be and if we choose not to be that way He has the (agreed to) authority, love, and POWER to do whatever He decides to bring us to maturity in this life or if need be in the life to come.

 

We also must remember that sanctification is a process. Too often, a person gets saved and we expect that person to completely do a 180 and never do the things that he was doing before. Sometimes that happens. Most times, it doesn't. God continues to work on people after their salvation, continually making them holy.

 

topaz,

Your supervisor has a "fire insurance" mentality about God's salvation. This "easy believism" is not true belief and is all too common in our Baptist and evangelical churches. I believe she is wrong and needs to understand that Jesus is Lord (Romans 10:9) and not just our Saviour. Sin is disobedience to God's law and we should never mock it with an indifferent attitude.

I believe God saves His children for eternity. They are adopted into His family and they grow in His Grace (sanctification). We should always make our calling and election sure and never presume on God's grace as if He owes us salvation. Yes, all Christians sin and fail God at times, but they are repentant and move forward in the joy and obedience of serving Him.

--Jeffrey

 

I agree with Don, once your saved the things you want to do change. So when you do what you want, it is no longer the samethings you did before. Which is not to say you will not slip and sin again. Ever notice you enjoy doing different things now since you've become a christian? When you are save you begin to take on the mind of Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit, your mind is renewed, not once but continuesly, which is growth. If grace is from Goda dn God alone, then He is the one responsable for keeping us in grace, I have evrey confidence He is able to do just that. Can't rememebr the reference but theres a verse that says where sin is grace does much more abound, meaning grace is great then sin, Jesus said He had never lost given to Him by the Father.
I'm saved and I'm never going to be lost again.

People who beleive they can do what they want and then go out and sin just becasue of God's grace need to do a lot of praying and soul searching to amke sure they really were saved. If not, nows the time you want to find out, not later.

 

God's love is unconditional. God's grace is not.

There's biblical support for OSAS, and there's also biblical support for the idea that one can lose salvation in some cases. These are matters of interpretation, and I'll choose not to debate them in my post.

However, there are other forms of grace that we receive, in the forms of blessings, in our lives. These are completely conditional, often on our obedience.

 

This is a much debated subject Topaz, and there are a lot of good posts right here on the subject.
Okay, Jesus, what does He give? Eternal life? If you have eternal life and in, let's say ten years you lose it, it was a ten year life and whatever it was, it was not what Jesus gives. HE says "...and they shall never perish." Never is never. To say otherwise you are CORRECTING THE LORD. "Well now Lord, yes they CAN perish." We are totally incapable of ourselves to make it to heaven. We don't deserve to go there and we don't deserve to stay there. The only place we can get to by ourselves is hell.
Jesus alone gets us to heaven. Look at it this way: You book a ticket on an airline to go to Chicago, pay for your ticket, the ticket says your flight to Chicago departs a certain time and gate. You check in, go to that gate and get on that plane that they have announced was departing for Chicago. Now, where are they going to take you? Dallas? If we can trust the airline and those pilots to get us to where we should go, we can more than trust He who loved us and gave Himself for us. (Now, yes, planes do, tragically, crash: but not this flight, with this Pilot!)
Now we come to your supervisor. There is apparently no fruit in this persons life. It is by their fruits that ye shall know them. It is not that doing, or not doing things that get us to heaven, it is those things, works, that SHOW what has taken place within us.
If we are children, we are under the chastening and correction of our Heavenly Father. If one shows no sign that sin bothers him/her, they are not a child of God and not saved.