Answer to a question posed by a reader in, “the lie of once saved, always saved” (3)

PART 3 — Wrapping Up

You are Christ’s. We are all brethren of Christ. We are gods and children of the Highest. We are to follow the example of Christ.

The ultimate goal of your salvation is to not only have eternal life but to be a person that is better today than you were yesterday. To be light in this world of darkness. To be different. Not “act” different, or “look” different. But be different. Not deceitfully, but in purity. To do that, you have to be dead to works of sin and alive to righteousness.

I am a believer, and I believe that I should be better now than I was when I was an unbeliever. That is the only way I can truly glorify God through my lifestyle. Yet, I am not sinless. However, if I confess my sins, God is faithful and just to forgive me and cleanse my unrighteousness. And I have been made the righteousness of God through Christ as a believer. Yet, If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Jesus came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Jesus may have come saying, “your sins are forgiven”, but its not the end of the sentence. “Go, and sin no more”. You cannot live that glorious life if you constantly fall back. Regress. Falter. There is a price to pay for imperfection, even though that is the stage that many of us are in. There is a price to pay for one step forward, two steps back.

People think that the point being made by saying “once saved always saved is a lie” is that I’m trying to say if you have ever sinned after salvation, you are a sinner again.

However, recall that faith is the only prerequisite for your salvation. Still, if you believe what you say you believe, your tendency to sin should be shrinking over time and not growing. If you are truly practising what you preach, the Word of God should change you from the inside out. The next time you are about to lie, you should be able to rethink that decision and say, “I am a Child of God, I am not expected to speak this way if it is not true”.

This is how the change occurs. To outsiders, it will slowly start to seem like magic, but you will know the reason why you are no longer acting the way you used to.

That is why we need to understand that your actions are supposed to show who you are Proverbs 12:17. You don’t fake it to make it. You become it, to become it.

So when your actions no longer align with your beliefs, it could be an indicator that you are slowly drifting away from your so-called beliefs. People don’t fall from grace in a day. People don’t lose their faith in an instance. They slowly gravitate towards their dead works, until they discover that the man wearing white linen and gladiator sandals that they were following up and down cannot be found anymore!

People don’t fall out of faith by saying, “I renounce you Jesus in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen!”. They slowly find out that the things they used to believe in, they don’t believe in anymore, because the cord that tethered them to the vessel of faith was extended as they lagged further behind until it became taut and finally broke.

So, we have people who are not being followers of Christ, who are still in the valley of the damned, but think that they are not because they remember that 4 years ago they gave their lives to Christ. They may not have prayed a single day, fasted, or read the bible outside of a church building since that fateful day, but they are convinced that they are still in the flock of God. Their actions may not coincide, but because they are convinced that their actions are not indicative of anything, they never bother to check themselves. They don’t realize they are no longer in the flock. They may still be considered sheep, but they are lost sheep. The prodigal son was his father’s son. Yet, he suffered like he wasn’t because he was lost.

Remember that it is with the heart that man believes. However, our actions are like a form of litmus test. Litmus paper is not what makes an acid, acid or a base, base. It simply demonstrates that one is one and not the other. Our actions are indicators of whether or not we are acid (in good standing) or base (in bad standing). We should watch the litmus test, every single day. Because we know that some people died and went to be judged, and Jesus told them, “depart from me, ye workers of iniquity!”. These were people who called him Lord.

We should watch our actions because life is a game of “hunt the thimble”. You’re either getting hotter or getting colder. You are either closer now to the image of the Son today than you were yesterday. Or farther from the image of His Son today than you were yesterday. This is our exercise in righteousness. We are expected to grow in the knowledge of him, and we know that muscle not exercised doesn’t stay the size you left it; it shrinks. So, we know that making no progress is another term for regression.

Now, even though we may be out of line sometimes, it doesn’t mean that we are unbelievers yet because we sometimes have sinned and still have the witness of the Spirit within us. And the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are born of God. But if you continually grieve the spirit, then you won’t be getting any directions or witnessing again simply because you have become hardened in your habit of sinfulness.

So the solution is this: Doing righteousness. And you cannot do it on your own. Remember how a few weeks ago, I explained that Peter loved Jesus, yet he couldn’t represent him until he was endued with power from on high. Believe me, when I tell you that resolve without power from on high will leave you running in circles.

Even Jesus Christ, the son of the most high God, had to be empowered before he faced (and overcame) temptation. Get this: Neither Paul, Peter, John, Matthew, Luke, and whoever wrote anything ever about Jesus, neither of them were there when he was tempted.

So, why did God choose to reveal the details of this chapter of his son’s ministry to us? Because he was explaining to us that empowerment comes before the triumph.

There is no such thing as new age truth. Fasting and Prayer, searching the scriptures, are what empower you for what God has called you to do. Elijah needed it, Jesus needed it, the apostles needed it, so who are you?

You can’t fake this, friends. You can’t fake it. Nothing done in secret shall not be revealed in the open.

Righteousness is a tall order. You will end up worse than you were when you started if God furnishes your heart and you leave it empty.

Righteousness is a spiritual act and can only be fuelled spiritually.

The devil asks us the same questions every single day. It doesn’t matter if you said the right answer yesterday. Or last week, or last month, or just this morning. You must say it again and again and again. You must mount up your defences again and again and again.

Your association must change, Amnon lost his place in destiny to poor association.

Where you spend your time must change. The things you do, the things you listen to, the things you watch. You must be constantly hearing the word so that you can even understand why you should not do the things you are told not to do. Understanding will take you farther than brute force ever will.

You can’t cheat this. This is the only way. You can’t do what they do, watch what they watch, listen to what they listen to, say what they say, and then automatically live differently from how they live.

Righteousness is hard work. If you are looking for magic, then I advise you to go somewhere else. If you want to do it the world’s way, then go the world’s way. If you want to do it God’s way, then you have to consistently renew your mind. You have to do it the way we are instructed to do it. You can’t keep the same associations, the same habits, the same lifestyle, and suddenly be transfigured into something different. It doesn’t work that way, even in the world!

Hard work is the only way, and faith is hard work.

We make the false assumption that becoming a person of faith is removing your hands from putting any form of effort. However, what it is actually, is putting your efforts to the right cause.

People are digging for gold. Just because it is something precious that they are digging for doesn’t make it any less strenuous to do that digging. It is still hard, it takes effort, it takes people who have the strength and will to find gold. We as believers are also digging for gold; we are digging for something worth more than gold.

Ask yourself this question: do you think you are the only person working hard? Some people work HARDER than you do, and have nothing to show for it. Are you the only one trying to be righteous? There are people in the world: monks, religious leaders, traditional priests, trying to be righteous as well.

But the only difference between hard work and hard work is the direction in which it is being applied. Some people are also digging, but they don’t know where the gold is. They are just digging holes anywhere they can find a piece of land. They are destroying buildings and structures in the hopes that when they excavate that site, they will find something precious.

We don’t need trial by error methods. We are directed by the spirit of God which areas to work with; to chisel out our life’s likeness. However, the hammer must hit the chisel to break off that piece of unwanted marble.

Our hard work is rewarding work☺️. Our hard work is also not frustrating work. His commandments are not grievous, if we do it using the right formula.

The Holy Spirit will work in you to cut out and burn out any fruit of unrighteousness the more you fill yourself with righteous books, scriptures, materials, exhortation. Nothing works by magic. You need to reprogram yourself. Heck, what am I saying? You need to brainwash yourself!

My dear friends, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified 1 Corinthians 9:27.

Sorry if this three-part answer has been too long for you to read, but that’s why this is Medium, not Twitter 😂.