It seems 2011 is going to be a year of growing for me if these first weeks of January are any indication. I'm accepting of that and thankful that there is a Holy God who refuses to leave me as I am....that He is still working on me. I have been encouraged to write what I am learning so that when I am asked about at a later date I will be able to find my account of it. I'm out of the habit of putting pen to paper and by writing here maybe someone else will be able to be encouraged by what the Lord is doing in me.
All that being said I'm a bit overwhelmed on where to start. I began to try an online dating site which I might add I do NOT recommend for the faint of heart, but maybe that's about dating in general and overall....However, I will even say God has used this to grow me. I began to chat with a man who has been very nice, sweet, kind, and he would discuss his faith with me. His background is VERY different than mine. At first, I was going to just dismiss him and move on....I wasn't sure we could overcome the differences. In fact, sometimes I'm still not, but he's at least willing to listen to me explain what I think.
It is in these discussions that I have come to the place to question why I believe what I believe. If I required him to have scripture to back up what he was saying then I needed my own....and found myself sadly lacking.
I had been praying about the matter and who to talk with. I'd spoken briefly to my pastor about the differences in the names of "religions" and what they really meant. (On that note I need to seek him out for a longer conversation so I can explain what Convenient Evangelical means and how it binds our band of misfits.) I have a friend that I bounce a lot of these types of questions off of and so I sent her a message. She and her husband sat down with me for a couple of hours and we hashed out the basics of the questions I had with the promise to have more time to discuss questions that are sure to arise (some already have).
My overarching question revolved around whether someone could lose their salvation. I have always been taught that once you were saved you were always saved. Upon stating this was asked then how did one become saved. This again is something I feel like I should pull out the Roman's Road and show someone but I was searching for something different, deeper.... So, upon a little guidance in the scripture I have some answers to my questions.
I'm going to start with Ephesians 2:1 "Once you were dead because of your disobedience and you many sins. I was dead, unable to do anything, a corpse." I've often heard it taught that salvation is a gift and all I have to do is take it, reach out and receive it. However, if I am dead I am unable to even reach for it, unable to even open my hand to take it. So, that would mean someone (God) had to come to me purposefully knowing they were going to have to do all the work.
Here I will back up to Ephesians 1: 4-14. You can read the whole thing for yourself but I want to bring out a few specific words/thoughts. "Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family...This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure....glorious grace he poured out....he chose us in advance....he identified you as his own.....he has purchased you to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him."
I think I should add that we are all born in sin and bent toward sin. There is nothing in us to desire God, to seek Him, nor to be different than how we were born. That leads me back to how was I saved....in the past I would have answered that I accepted Christ as my Savior on a Sunday as a 7 or 8 year old girl at the church we were attending at the time. Now, after seeing just how unable I was to receive....I was dead after all, I will answer that on that day I bowed to the awesome amazing wonderful holy wholly loving call of God on my life. Before He spoke the world into being He choose me and on that day bowed my heart in overcoming power to submit to the greatest love ever known. He purchased me from the sinful life wholly deserving hell and set me apart. I did nothing in this process. He bent my heart, soul, will, and mind toward Him. He provided the faith and humbling; those are not sinful human things but are gifts from Him. John 1: 11 says, "He came to his own people, and even they rejected him."
At this point in studying and talking my questions began to be if God began the work or process of salvation, of making me Christ-like then how did I do some of the things I have done and doesn't that separate me from this love and salvation????? Without going too deeply into free will and just how free one's will is let me say that people are at different places in their faith and strength.
Satan is a roaring lion looking for who he can destroy; he comes to still kill and destroy. I think this is why we are admonished to build up one another in the body of Christ. It's in our weakness that we lose sight of whose we are and make choices we end up not being proud of. Now having said that, I also think God knew we were going to do these things and uses them to bring Him glory. He isn't surprised by what we do and nor does He require our obedience to accomplish His will. This reminds me of Mordecai telling Esther that God will save the Jews without her but perhaps she was put here in this time and place to accomplish this purpose.
I'm getting off subject.....saying that our flesh is weak and we all sin even when we purpose after God. I am reminded of David who was deemed a man after God's own heart. Even in his affair with Bathsheba and his choice in insure her husband was killed in battle, God never quit on him. 2 Timothy 2:13 says, "If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is."
That brings me to the last part of what I went in search of....can I be separated from my salvation? Can it be lost? I think that depends on how you obtained salvation. If you maintain you had to accept the gift of salvation then yes you can denounce your acceptance. However, if you maintain that God did all the work and you had nothing to do with it then no it can not be lost. First, it makes no sense for God to have chosen me before the foundations of the world to be His, knowing everything I would do both righteous and sin, and then to turn His back on me when I do what He already knew I would do. He knew it all when Jesus died, was buried, and rose again to defeat said sin and resulting death.
Now, even if that doesn't make sense to you there are two places in scripture I'd like to consider. The first is Romans 8: 35-39 which says, "Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?....And I am convinced that nothing (I would add here not even sin; nothing means nothing) can separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below--indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus out Lord." The other place I would reference is Psalms 139. "O Lord you have examined my heart and know everything about me....You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord....I can never escape from you Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven you are there; if I go down to the grave (I will add that some versions say hell instead of grave) you are there but even in darkness I cannot hide from you....You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed...."
As anticipated I now have new questions but for now this is what God has given me. I pray it blesses and encourages you! :)
