Can you walk away from God?

Sure you can 'walk away'....but He'll come get you and bring you back if you are His! Remember the parable of the lost sheep?

 

I am a born again Christian. I am also still a sinner and I do need to repent when I sin! The Holy Spirit is still working on me!

You will see in the Parable (Luke 15) that Jesus is responding to the 'righteous' Pharisees and teachers of the law when they mutter about Him welcoming sinners and even eating with them. And so Jesus turns the tables on them. They consider themselves righteous and so will refuse Jesus and not see any need to repent. It is sinners like us who go to Him in humility and even desperation who become His -- and who He will, time and again, go and get when we wander away.

Jesus starts the parable with "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them...." The sheep are already His! So this is not a parable about being born again, but rather a parable about those of us who are already born again, already His, and how we can still manage to be idiots! He doesn't give up on us. He keeps on keeping on. Phil. 1:6 says He is faithful to complete the good work He began in us.

I COUNT on that!

 

==Of course a person can "walk away from God". It is called "apostasy". This is done by people who professed to be Christians but who, by their apostasy, prove they were not true Christians (1Jn 2:19, Jn 8:31, Col 1:21-23, etc). A true believer will not walk away because he/she is born of God and "cannot" practice sin (1Jn 3:9-10) and Jesus is the author and finisher (perfecter) of the true believers faith (Heb 12:2, Phil 1:6, 1Thess 5:23-24, etc).

==To understand Revelation 3:5 as a threat is to misunderstand the verse. The verse is a promise to the overcomer, the true believer (1Jn 5:1,4-5, Rev 21:7, etc), that their name will never be erased from God's book of life. This is not a warning passage. Those who understand it as such have misunderstood John's statement.

 

This week, I will make a post to discuss about this with verses. YES, a truly believer can walk away from the Lord. Luke chapter 15 is a perfect example for a backslidder. I have no time to make this post. I will discuss it this week with scriptures.

By the way, Rev. 3:5 tells us, if a person who OVERCOME them, shall have eternal life. Or, if a person fail to overcome them, person's name shall not be written in the book of life. 'Overcome' mean victory over them. That meanb we must be endure and fight against sins throughout our life till death. Rev. 2:10 tells us, we must be endure to death THEN shall receive crown of life. Or, if we do not endure by the we die, then shall not receive the crown of life. Revelation chapter 2 and 3 show overwhelmed talking about conditional with warnings. It apply to us as Church.

I will discuss more this week.

In Christ
Rev. 22:20 -Amen!

 

I think there is huge misreading of scripture for the simple fact of not realizing that when the Apostles were writing epistles to the churches they were dealing with people in a time of transition and there in the churches were many unbelieving Jews and the Apostles were not only having to preach to the world but still had the unbelieving Jews among them in great numbers.

 

How about this one?

I know we all stray occasionally.....just seems to be in our (old) natures..certainly NOT our new one. I know a guy,a personal friend,who was saved,and by his own testimony says he meant it when he trusted the Lord and wanted to live for God and serve Him faithfully ( which he did for nearly 10 years). However,he went through a bad marriage,SHE left and divorced him(he didn't even believe in divorce for a christian which SHE professed to be as well)He tried to win her back to no avail. After all was said and done she was gone,two kids by the marriage, he tried to continue on but in the course of time got very defeated and discouraged and before he even knew what happened was out of church,out of fellowship with the Lord and right back into the "old lifestyle"(even worse than before he was saved)....and even though he has said that he was AWARE he was living wrong and over the space of time(nearly 13 years and a second bad marriage..she left him and divorced him as well)was frequently under some degree of conviction he continued to live out of fellowship with God. He had given up...didn't know how to go on...was ashamed before God and knew he deserved Hell and the judgement of God. Nearly 13 years....in God's eye almost less than a "blink"...in human time that seems like forever. And then...over the course of time,the Lord continued to deal with him and as time and more harsh circumstances came along,he begin to realize that the Lord never left him,but rather it was the other way around. Even after all those years there was a longing,as David said,to be a man after God's own heart. He met a woman,a christian woman whose husband had deserted her and divorced her for another woman 20 years previous. The relationship did not have a perfect beginning but in a short time he was attending church with her and the Lord used it to grab his heart the 1st time he stepped through the front door. He repented,asked the Lord to forgive him for his sin and his waywardness and has dedicated himself to walking with the Lord an being a fruitful,faithful child of God from now til Jesus comes...and oh yeah...he and the lady got married after all that was settled. That guy was ME. Folks,I shared all that to say this.....can you walk away from God?....YES....but I beg you DON'T. I literally feel as if I wasted all those years even though God in His infinite foreknowledge knew exactly what I was going to do from eternity past and He was working out His purpose in not only my life but all of yours as well. I still can't help but wonder though what my life might have been for Him if I hadn't made some of the bad choices I made. If someone can benefit from this testimony and NOT TURN AWAY and just remember,don't give up,keep trusting the Lord and keep your eyes(and your heart) upon Jesus,then all the sadness and trouble in my life will be worth something of eternal value. The biggest mistake I made was taking my eyes off Jesus Christ. By God's Grace..NEVER AGAIN !!:type:

In Christ, Greg Perry Sr.raying: :saint:

 

Thank you for your testimony. Those years may seem wasted to you, but if the Lord uses your testimony to prevent someone else from wasting so many years, or any years at all, then that time will have been redeemed. And you have been blessed more at the end than at the beginning.

I thank God for what you have been through. You will understand things others couldn't. God will use your story. God bless you.

 

One can walk away, but one cannot stop being a son (and if sons, then heirs Romans 8:17). The Heavenly Father knows how to parent, the Good Shepherd knows how to lead and discipline His sheep.

 

Sweet!

:thumbs:

 

That is an awesome testimony! I too left the Lord for many years and He drew me back. Grace is an awesome, awesome thing! (I use that word a lot .)
:godisgood:

:jesus: IS LORD!

As my pastor says: He is God very God!

 

No, but I sure tried running for time. Fortunately for me He just waited till I exhausted myself and collapsed at His feet sobbing. :thumbs:

 

In all seriousness though, Here is my posting:
If you COULD fall away from or loose your salvation then the scriptures would never state that it is a done deal BEFORE you are dead. It would ALWAYS show it as a work in progress. And yet we find a multituted of verses stating it is a finished (past tense) work concerning the believer WHEN they believed by faith. Here is a scripture I believe irrefutable on the subject (it is one of many :smilewinkgrin: )

NOTE: saved is in the past perfect tense showing a completed act HAS been done. Which takes works out of the equation and keeps your boasting silent.
It is also in the passive voice which means The passive voice represents the subject as being the recipient of the action. And in no way indicates the action is continued on nor is it completed by the subject. Interesting how one word can unravil such drivil like conditional salvation.

We can not save ourselves and by that token if we can not save ourselves we (with great assurance) can not keep ourselves saved since it was an act of God to begin with. Unless of course you are greater than God who saved you.

It is of note what John stated in I John 2:19:

 

THAT says it all. Thanks!

 

The prodigal son walked away from God (his father). He came back but that was purely out of his own free will. He could have stayed away.

 

I think one of the neatest things is no matter how hard we run and far we run from God, when we are ready to return, we don't have to go running all that way back. All we have to do is turn to God, and He's right there - kind of looks like He runs right along with us!