Today, Wednesday August 4
Saved for Sure
1 John 3:5 & 8
“You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin….. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
There are some people, who no doubt are genuine believers, but they misinterpret several verses in the New Testament and they really believe in what we call “sinless perfection.” They think that when Jesus told the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery to go and sin no more (John 8:11), that Jesus is teaching that after we have been forgiven of our sins we have the ability or power never to sin again or He wouldn’t have told her to sin no more. They also take some the verses before us today out of context and use them to back up this belief.
By the way, they also teach that if you do sin after you have been saved and forgiven that you will lose your salvation and will not go to heaven. In other words they do not believe in eternal security.
I personally strongly believe that they are wrong on both accounts. 1 John 1 and 2 both make it very clear that a genuine believer can commit sin. The Apostle Paul sure believed that a believer could struggle with the old sin nature after salvation (Romans 7). I also believe that if a person has by God’s grace experienced true salvation and has been born again, that they can never lose their salvation by something they do.
If you believe you can lose your salvation by some sin you might commit then you have a salvation by works and not by grace. And the scripture is very clear that salvation is by grace and faith alone!
But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)
We have a great and eternal salvation! Knowing this, we should make sure every day that we have no unconfessed sin in our lives. Sin in the life of a believer will rob him of his joy (Psalm (51:12) and assurance but will never separate him from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus!
Let me close with this wonderful truth and promise found in Romans 8:38-39.
“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God bless!