To truly understand what our salvation means, we can view ourselves as an orphan. Before you meet God you are the child of sin [Psalm 51:5][Ephesians 2:1-3], and when you accept Jesus as your saviour, you are adopted by God into his Kingdom [John 1:12].
Now when a child is adopted, it is the parents full responsibility to look after that child and to care for it as their own for the rest of their lives. There is no receipt that comes with adoption, and there are no refunds.
This means that when we are adopted by God we can never ever leave his family. We are part of his family for the rest of our earthly lives and for the eternity of our heavenly lives [John 3:16].
So does that mean we cannot lose our salvation?
What if we sin against God and we haven’t repented before we die; do we then go to hell because we haven’t repented of our sins?
In your parents house there are rules to follow, and if you refuse to accept these rules then the chances are you’ll be kicked out of the house. This can be likened to walking away from God.
When you sin you are physically walking away from God, and the further you get from him, the closer you get to sin. The closer you get to sin and the more tumultuous your life will become; It’s like driving towards a hurricane.
However if a child were to break the rules of his father and turn his back from him, in a loving family, the father would always welcome him back home with open arms when the child decides he wishes to come back. It is extremely difficult to break the parent/child bond between humans, and it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to break our fatherly bond with God.
God’s love overcomes all, and therefore there is nothing that we could ever do to break apart from him. And even if any of us believers were to die before repenting of sin, God would never reject us. His love is far purer and stronger than anything we could possibly imagine, and it is by his grace alone that we are given salvation [Ephesians 2:8].
We can see in the bible that Jesus taught us exactly how our relationship with God would be in Luke 15:11-32.
When the prodigal son had turned from his father and decided that he was ready to come home, he had devised a big speech about how sorry he was and how he’s not worthy of being his son. To his surprise his father didn’t want to know any of that and instead he ran towards him and embraced him, and they even had a massive celebration to mark his return.
Just as the prodigal son was welcomed with open arms, so will God welcome you with open arms when you decide that your sin wasn’t worth it. But despite your sin taking you apart from God, you will always be his adopted child and there is nothing that can ever get between you and God. John 10:28 puts it best with this verse “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand“.
Another point to make from the story of the prodigal son is that his father had to get him a robe and sandals; this indicates that the son didn’t even return to his father with shoes on; he had absolutely nothing. This is exactly how we return to our Heavenly Father. Because God is our provider, we have nothing without him.
What can we say about Christians who decide to stop believing in God?
Do they lose their salvation because they have chosen to be apart from God?
When Jesus says that nothing can snatch us from his and the Father’s hands, he means it.
God will never give us anything that we can’t handle. Even if we part from Jesus for a short while, God himself knows your path and he will always place you back in his arms.
Sometimes God can use our lack of faith as a lesson so that we grow into stronger Christians.
When you truly become a Christian, you are handing your life over to Jesus. You are dying on the cross, just as he did, so that he can give you new life [Matthew 16:24-25].
In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come“, this shows us that we become completely new when we accept Jesus, so we no longer are ruled by sin and we no longer suffer the death of sin.
A Christian who has truly accepted Jesus into their lives will never be able to turn from him fully because we have already recognised him as our saviour. We have recognised the truth of his Lordship and so we cannot ever be completely fooled by lack of faith.
To finish this post off, i will leave you with a verse about salvation from the book of Romans, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved“[Romans 10:9].
If you want to read more lessons for believers, please click the link here: Lessons for Believers
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Great sources. No doubt, you’re an authority in this area.
Your tone and enthusiasm really shows in your writing. Great post!