A man in his 70s recently lost his wife to a long-term disease. She was a true believer in Jesus, and so is he. In an attempt to comfort him, a friend said, “The good news is that she is in heaven with Jesus.” The husband’s response showed he had great anxiety over this. He replied, “I’m not so sure she’s in heaven.” He had been taught that we can’t be sure we are going to heaven when we die as Christians. Yet, this belief is mild compared to what many Christ indwelt Christians believe.
The biggest lie about us having 100% assurance about going to heaven has to do with how much we sin versus how much we obey God. The common lie is that if you sin too much, God will get fed up with you, and he will depart from you forever. Yet, let’s be honest. Haven’t many of us done that one sin so many times that we’ve wondered if this might be true or if we are even Christians at all?
One Scripture seems to say that we can “out-sin” God’s grace and lose our salvation, meaning Christ will no longer live in us. It’s in Hebrews 10: “26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” The sin here is only one—rejecting Jesus Christ as our Savior and Messiah after we understand the gospel.
There are many similar Scriptures that can be confusing such as Colossians 1:22 and 23, “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. ” (Italicized for emphasis) This Scripture appears to say that if you once believed in Jesus but later denied him, denouncing your faith, Jesus ejected from you, and you lost your salvation.
The answer is if someone once claimed faith in Jesus but later denied him as their Savior, it is likely they never had Christ in them. They believed the facts of the gospel and might have had some emotional experiences, but trials and time prove whether a person’s faith is genuine.
Dr. Adrian Rogers once said it this way. “A faith that fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first.”
Finally, think of this. If we can lose our salvation, it means this. God would have to take us out of the heavenly places where we now sit with Christ, un-resurrect us with Christ, un-crucify us with Christ, and sever the union we have with Christ! That is simply not going to happen. We are secure in Christ forever.
We are forgiven, clean, righteous, holy, blameless, and close in Christ forever. That’s why it’s called the lavish grace of God in Ephesians 1!
