The Lie of “once saved, always saved” (Part Two): Our exercise in righteousness.
This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith.
Thank you for joining us.
This is Week 11.
(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well as some articles lead into the next one).
Scripture Reading: Romans 6
This is the story of the world:
God said, “Alright guys, I’m giving you the freedom to do whatever you want; but I want you to do what is right. I am the only one that can show you what is right, and it is only when you follow my instructions that you can achieve the best that I have planned for you. However, you can do whatever you want.”
However, humanity heard, “I’m giving you the freedom to do whatever you want — ” and went batshit crazy!
“Woohoo, freedom!”
Freedom wasn’t given to do what we like, but to do what we ought. Pope John Paul II said that.
People assume that if you are committed to something, then you cannot be tempted by anything else. “If you are still tempted by anything else, then it means you are not committed to that thing.”
God tells us to resist the devil. Why would you have to resist something you don’t feel enticed by?
When you ignore your responsibility, or God’s instructions to us in righteousness because of convenience then what you are essentially saying is that Christ was crucified because it felt convenient for him!
Christ Himself had to learn obedience through the things which he suffered (Hebrews 5:8).
“…endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2)
You don’t endure what you enjoy. You only endure what you don’t enjoy.
“father if thou willest, let this cup pass over me…” (Luke 22:42)
That is Jesus literally telling God that he would have liked to not have to bear all of that weight!
However, “let your will be done”.
For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. (Romans 15:3)
Romans 15 verse 4:
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
“Father, if it though willest, let this cup pass over me…”
So it is true; you shouldn’t be tempted by anything else. You wouldn’t want to be tempted by anything else, but you can be. Temptations are designed and tailor-made to tempt!
It’s not because God tempts us, we tempt ourselves when we are drawn off by our own thoughts and lusts. Our lusts are a side-effect of being spirit beings in fleshly vessels.
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
— James 1:13–15 KJV.
This is why God is so particular about us guarding our hearts and thoughts (Romans 12:2, Proverbs 4:23)
As believers and people in search for truth, the lie that we tell ourselves is that finding the right path is the hardest job there is.
We have convinced ourselves that treading the right path will be an adventure in candy land since we know that it is the right path. “Let me just find the right thing to do, I promise I will do it!”. We think the doing is the easy part, and the finding was the crescendo of our struggle.
However, nobody ever said it would be easy.
We see that even the Christ who was sent to this earth to save humanity did not trust/please his own flesh. We spoke about this a few weeks ago. I was saying that even when Christ was tempted, he didn’t answer according to what he wanted, but according to what God wanted (according to scripture).
Christ was hungry but refused to turn stone to bread. He knew he is the Son of God, but did not let himself tempt God. He knew that the silver and gold, and the power of heaven and earth and all that exists belong to him eternally, yet he didn’t bow to the devil to get a shortcut to power and glory.
Note that if all these things were not enticing, then the scripture wouldn’t call them temptations. However, because the Word already knew that the flesh (feeling) is a follower and not a leader, He disciplined his flesh by bringing it in subjection to the scripture.
The same goes for us as humans, regardless of the facts of our lives prior to salvation. You have to become good because you believe good.
You can’t be busting people in these ends, gang banging and dope dealing, murdering and stealing, and then call yourself one of the saints. Why? You can’t keep taking the shortcut to glory and power and blaming it on the harshness of life. Jesus didn’t do that, and so you shouldn’t either. There is a price to pay for being good, and that price is to stop doing bad.
A true believer cannot believe in goodness and be a lover of evil works. It is just not possible! Your acts are intended to affirm your beliefs, because if they don’t, how can you even claim to believe what you say you believe?
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. — 1 John 1:6
Joshua believed in the power of God, and that spurred confidence in him, boldness, and assurance. It reflected in his speech, and in his deeds when he was part of the 12 spies.
Yet again, the people of Israel were God’s chosen people, so they had pedigree. They had a reputation of being Yahweh’s people, yet the Bible tells us that they perished in the wilderness because of their unbelief (Hebrews 3:16–19).
These two illustrations show us that it isn’t about what you say you believe, or what people think you are. The truth will show in your deeds and your outcomes. Your fruits will be yielded unto righteousness if you are consciously renewing your mind with God’s Word — like Joshua. However, if you only have the reputation and none of the substance, you will be found out in no time because God is not mocked. You reap what you sow.
So what are we saying?
You can’t be throwing up gang signs and lifting holy hands at the same time.
What did you sacrifice in order to justify the scriptures where Jesus said one must carry one’s cross, forsake everything and follow? (Matthew 16:24). Or when Jesus said he has come to turn the heart of fathers against children (Luke 1:17)? Or when he told that young rich man to forsake all that he had, sell it all, and follow him (Luke 18:22)?
What do you think these scriptures connote? They connote a reckless abandonment of the things you once loved aforetime (sin and vainglory). If at the point you chose to follow Jesus, you didn’t have the deep-seated longing to abandon your sinful nature, then your salvation is in question.
In scripture, we saw the man who wanted to be saved but couldn’t abandon his wealth (vainglory). Although Jesus says to everyone to “come, and I will give you rest”, he couldn’t give this man the rest he wanted to give him because the man couldn’t abandon the things that took preeminence in his life. He couldn’t take up his own cross and follow Jesus. We are dropping our burden to pick up a lighter burden. We cannot carry both on this journey in righteousness!
Yet, this doesn’t mean that our “feeling” of reckless abandonment will always be there. Our wanting to be righteous will remain in our faith journey, but many sinful habits require different levels of faith, prayer, fasting and understanding to break free from. Yet, just because it gets hard doesn’t mean it makes more sense to quit and return back to the things you were rescued from. The Spirit of God will quicken your mortal body if you continue in faith and in following instructions in righteousness. Your will and mental assent cannot help you here.
Read the whole of Romans chapter 8, to understand what it means to be a child of God.
Recall that in that same chapter, when Paul was giving the list of all the things that cannot separate us from the love of God, he never mentioned sin. Sin can separate us from the love of God, not because God wouldn’t love us when we sin, but because God can’t reach us when we sin. Why? Because he will call, and we won’t answer!
Look at the story of the prodigal son. He left his home, and took his inheritance and failed at life. He was wallowing with the pigs and yet he was a wealthy man from a wealthy home. Now, will you say his father didn’t love him? His father loved him! But even if his father had called him home prior to that point of rock bottom, he wouldn’t have come back because he was still rich, killing it, partying and getting laid, and so he wouldn’t have answered.
That is what it is. Your sin of rebellion takes you out of God’s speed dial because you took him out of your speed dial. Even if he told you the right way to go, you wouldn’t obey it. Even if he told you what to say, you wouldn’t say it.
Here is where you see that sin is a drug. Its hangover is unrivalled. You sinned, and so like the prodigal son you left home. Nobody could reach you, because you thought you were killing it at life and so you needed no advice.
Now, you’ve repented of your sin, but you cannot come home because you feel guilty, and you feel guilty because of your filth; you wallowed with the pigs. Now your filth makes you feel unworthy, and your feeling of unworthiness ultimately leads to you never wanting to come back home to God. How could you? You know you were wrong, you don’t know if you’ll be accepted again.
And then slowly, you start to ask yourself, “is God even necessary?”, “must I even feel this guilt?”, and then in the twinkle of an eye, you are back in the valley of decision again!
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold — Matt 24:12
This should never be the case with us, because we have been filled with the spirit of adoption.
See you next week,
God be with ye till then!
