Salvation Cannot Be Taken Away

Recently I got an interesting question in the "I wonder..." box. The question is this, "Would you still go to heaven if you believe in God, but you don't follow everything He says?" This is a question that needs unpacking.

First off, no one is perfect, Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Even when you become a Christian you still deal with sin and temptation and doing the right thing. Second, you need to realize that salvation is a free gift. It's not something dependant on you. Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH, and this not from yourselves, it is a GIFT from God, NOT BY WORKS, so that no one can boast." God gives it to us, and it's not based on something that you do, or don't do.

John 3:16-18, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because He has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." This is a great passage. You may have heard the first part before, but the whole thing is awesome. God loved us, before we loved Him and so He sent His Son to save the world. All you need to do to be saved is believe. We see Paul say this, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved... (Acts 16:31)" If you have believed, you are saved.

I believe that you can never lose your salvation either. Lets look at just John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE." All you have to do is believe. If you believe then 2 things will happen: 1. you will not perish, (this means that you won't die spiritually), 2. you will have eternal life. This isn't temporary. It's not something that can be taken away. It's eternal. Listen to Jesus' words in John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, WHOEVER hears my word and BELIEVES HIM who sent me HAS ETERNAL LIFE, and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." This is something you can be confident of just like you can be confident that your family loves you. God's love & free gift for all eternity, is yours if you believe. It doesn't matter whether you can feel it or not. It's there.

You can have confidence in this fact: salvation is a gift from God, it's free, and it's something you can never lose. All you have to do is believe. So, my response to this question is this, "Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God?"