How do you know that YOU KNOW? Security in our salvation….it is a much debated belief. As a Baptist, but an open minded person, I have studied the security of the believer many times…especially when I was 28 and still feeling unsure of my salvation and wondering how to have peace within. I had walked the aisle at age 8 and been baptized, but continued to struggle with doubt for 20 years. As I searched for answers, I realized that I never truly had the Holy Spirit living within me. I want to speak to all of those that are struggling like I was. If you find yourself living a life of sin, and you are not being convicted from within, you may need to go back and examine your salvation experience. If you have TRULY surrendered and have given your life to Christ, the Holy Spirit living within you will not let you continue to live a sinful life. Ephesians 1:13–14 ”And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. “ If you are saved, you are God’s possession, and it’s not like Wal-Mart….he doesn’t have a return policy. Salvation is not something you have earned, we did nothing to earn salvation (salvation is a free gift of God’s grace), so how can we ever lose salvation? Conditional security in salvation is acceptable only to those who also believe that they somehow contributed to their salvation in the first place. This is the opposite of what the bible teaches in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast,” which clearly states that we contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation; even the faith necessary to receive the gift of grace, is itself a gift of God.
The most popular objections to the belief that a Christian cannot lose salvation are 1) What about those who are Christians and continually live an immoral lifestyle? 2) What about those who are Christians but later reject the faith and deny Christ? The problem with these two objections is the phrase “who are Christians.” The Bible declares that a true Christian will not live a continually immoral lifestyle. The Bible declares that anyone who departs the faith is demonstrating that he never truly was a Christian. 1John “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” Therefore, neither objection is valid. True Christians do not continually live immoral lifestyles, nor do they reject the faith and deny Christ. Such actions are proof that they were never redeemed.
Here are two more scriptures to hold on to: Romans 8:38–39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 10:28–29 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
If you have surrendered your life to Jesus, the Holy Spirit was deposited into you, and you have security that NOTHING can take that away from you. We all will continue to have sin in our lives- because we are still human. But the Spirit within us will whisper to us that we need to confess and turn away from that sin. He will search our hearts and minds and we will not rest until we are right with God. And as we grow closer to the Lord each day, we will find it harder and harder to do anything that would not please God.
Written with help from "Gotquestions.org"
