Wednesday, January 25, 2023 Some material from United in Our Beliefs Part 3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. I Peter 1:3-5
Securing Eternity
Security of the Believer - All true believers endure to the end.
When we become a Christian, we begin a relationship with God that guarantees our eternal security. We are held by God, sanctified by His Spirit and destined for an eternal home with Him in Heaven. Jude 24 says, To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy. God’s grace is forever, and nothing and no one can take it away or snatch you from His hand, but the familiar “Once saved, always saved’” tends to cheapen the grace of God. We should never take the grace of God for granted and not look at this concept as an extra allowance to fail, but instead as a safety net, or protection from ourselves. I am so glad that I cannot do anything that would make God stop loving me or take His grace from me. We cannot even disqualify ourselves after Jesus Christ has qualified us with His shed blood.
Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, bring reproach on the cause of Christ, and temporal judgments on themselves, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. John 10:28-29b
The Eternal State
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." John 3:36
Because we have this eternal security, we will be raised to eternal life with Him in heaven. Those who are not saved will be judged and everlasting punishment. Christians are present with the Lord as soon as they breathe their last breath. There they wait for the first resurrection, when spirit, soul and body are reunited to be glorified forever with the Lord.
Satan is real. Hell is real. He may not be able to snatch us out of His hand, but he will try to turn our attention away from God as much as possible. He couldn’t care less about the unsaved. They are not a threat to him, but we are. Christians are a threat to Satan because he knows who already won. He wants to deceive as many as possible here on earth and keep Christians from leading more people away from him and to the Lord. We are safe. We have eternal security in God but there are many more who do not, and the time is now - we need to be leading them to the Lord.
We have eternal security because of God’s love for those whom He has redeemed. We have eternal security purchased by Christ, promised by the Father, and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
