Grace

Christians can and should have complete confidence in their salvation. However, salvation is a gift that can be “returned”. The bible is quite clear that we can relinquish our salvation, but only if we reject it willfully. We don’t “accidentally” lose our salvation each time we commit a sin nor even during periods of time when we relapse into sinful behavior. We can forfeit our salvation, but not as easily as many people think.

The writer of the Hebrew letter gives some very important information to help us in our understanding of the conditions under which a saved person rejects God’s gift.

Grace, properly understood, should leave us feeling assured of our salvation. However, it is common for people to doubt their salvation at some point after becoming a Christian. There are several reasons for this. One reason might be that as we learn, we realize how good God is and how bad we humans are. Being more aware of our sins may lead us to question how God could love someone as “bad as I am”. We feel there are sins we can’t overcome, we have thoughts we shouldn’t have, we keep failing, etc. We feel we are a failure as a disciple and therefore God will reject us.

Sometimes bad theology is to blame. Some Christian teachers/preachers erroneously teach that each time we sin after becoming a Christian we have lost our salvation until we repent and pray to God asking forgiveness. A variation on this teaching is that we don’t lose our salvation every time we sin, but we lose our salvation when we “backslide”. The term “backslide” means to relapse into patterns of sinful behavior. Fortunately, the Bible does NOT teach these ideas of “intermittent salvation”. The bible is quite clear that Christians can and should have assurance of their salvation.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8 ESV)

Grace saves us!

Grace, simply defined, is God’s generosity, goodwill, favor, loving kindness, etc. Because God is so loving and generous it pleases Him to give us the gift of eternal life.