Recently in Salvation Category

Through the years, one of the most popular articles on this site involves losing salvation, drawing some rather heated comments. It appears many people struggle with this issue, especially the Hebrews six passage (read the linked article for the full analysis). Since this topic causes so much anxiety and problems, let’s step back and consider it from a different angle.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they are at the crossroads — standing at the “Y” in the road — before them two different paths. You can only choose one path, and it’s clear these paths lead in different directions in different ways. As the crisp autumn breeze blows in your face, you must decide which path to choose. Winter is coming soon, and you can’t stay here forever. You must make a choice. You can’t see very far down either road, and each looks similar, yet different. One slopes gently downward, it’s path covered with small stones which crunch under your feet. It’s a wide path, and looks well traveled by many people before you. Curious though, no one is around to ask about it. You hear the wind whistling through the evergreen trees as you study this path, trying to decide if you should take it or not.

We received an email recently comparing two religions and asking if God was the same, why the different messages (specifically about who Jesus is). But implicit in the question is one assumption: religions speak of the same god, and in spite of differences, have the same core foundation.

We frequently hear of maintaining “unity” in the church — a worthy goal, is it not? Yes, it’s true Christians shouldn’t quibble over petty doctrinal differences (like dunking forward or backward during baptism), yet a move is afoot which, while sounding thoroughly orthodox, proves quite dangerous and not even Christian as it seeks to pervert Christianity into something else, all while using the same vocabulary as traditional Christianity.

Sadly, one of the biggest conflicts in the church today surrounds baptism. Is it required for salvation? If so, sprinkled or dunked? Must a priest perform it to be valid? From what church? Is the water consecrated or not? Mention baptism and these are just some of the issues to be addressed; baptism can be a highly charged topic. Unfortunately, it has led to the division of many churches and people in Christianity — this ought not to be (some of the nastiest email we get is from Christians on this very subject).

Satan wants to cause FUD (a TLA [three letter acronym] known in the computer industry — standing for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) among God’s people. For example, when the Israelites left Egypt and traveled towards the promised land, just before they were to enter in they sent in twelve spies to search out the land. Ten returned with bad news — there were giants in the land, and we are no match for them. Two of them said God is with us, it’s no problem, let’s go in and take it. But Israel succumbed to satan’s old trick, FUD. Therefore, they wandered for 40 years, and their children were the ones to enter into the land.

One of our most popular articles concerns losing salvation — some say you can once be saved, and they become unsaved, others say you can’t. Yet that article still generates much of the email we receive.

One of the arguments against once saved, always saved we hear is “if that’s true, it means I can live any way I want and still be saved”. Not so fast.

Don’t we all want to have a spirit filled life? Then we must be able to resist attacks of the enemy. Satan uses lies and deception to keep us wandering in the wilderness, unfocused and powerless to engage the enemy; the idea a Christian can lose their salvation causes much anxiety.