Beautiful People!

Welcome to the second part of the series: ‘Once saved, always saved’. Please if you have not read the first part, it is imperative that you do so, in order to get an accurate understanding of this topic. You can read part 1a here.

As stated in the previous post, Frances Okoro of www.imperfectlyperfectlives.com is doing the honours with a comprehensive breakdown study.

Here is the concluding part of her write up:

2cor 5 starts by talking about how we who are saved have an eternal body made for us by God himself in heaven. How we who live in earthly bodies want to be rid of them so we can put on our heavenly bodies… Now, you should know that only those who are saved can pass through the pearly gates so the question again is, I have believed but how do I indeed know that I am saved? How do I know that God has made me an eternal body too?

One answer…

2Cor 5:5 “God himself has prepared us for this and as a guarantee He has given us His Holy Spirit”.

Benny Hinn explained this in His book “Good morning Holy Spirit” as “Jesus has paid the price for you to live in Him and be resurrected with Him already, but He gave you a down payment for this by giving you the Holy spirit! You still have Him in you? Then Halleluyah! You are saved! (paraphrased).

So the Holy spirit in us is a guarantee that we are saved and will be resurrected with Christ. And how do we know this? The re-occurring lesson here is by faith. By believing.

2Cor 5:16 says “we have stopped evaluating others from the Human point of view…. (17)this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person…

And I ask, how do we not evaluating people from the human point of view mean that they are a new person in Christ Jesus?

Because we look away from what the human eye can see and we see in faith in the Spirit. We believe in faith and not in what humans believe.

And I asked a question before, how do I know that I belong to Christ Jesus? It goes back to the Holy Spirit again…

Romans 8:9 – “But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (AND REMEMBER THAT THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST LIVING IN THEM DO NOT BELONG TO HIM AT ALL.)”

So the question is answered, I know I am saved and I belong to God when I have the Spirit of God in me.

But then another question, is the Holy Spirit still in me when I fall in sin?

I can only answer this from my personal experience… When I fall in sin, the Holy Spirit doesn’t condemn me. He does what Jesus said He will do in John 16:8 “When He comes, He will convict the world of its sin and of God’s righteousness...(now, we have talked about righteousness before)

For conviction of sin? When I sin, the Holy Spirit indeed tells me that I have done something wrong. He tells me this not in a way to condemn me, but to get me to repent and also draw me closer to God.

So, no, even when I fall, the Holy Spirit in me still does the job of telling me I have erred and helps me ask for forgiveness from God and draws me closer, not away from God.

So falling in sin, doesn’t push the Holy Spirit away but staying in sin does.

So when I fall in sin, that doesn’t mean that I am still not righteous. Because righteousness is not of my works but through Christ.

Just as well as my works does not earn me salvation, salvation is a gift from God which I get by receiving and believing in faith in Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2:8&9)

So salvation/our being saved is there to stay forever. It’s a gift that God doesn’t take away neither because of our works/not because of our works.

There is one way that we can be unsaved though…

Hebrews 6:4 –

“For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit,  who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.”

Hebrews 10:26-29 also expatiates on this.

Those who turn away from God, who deliberately continue sinning even after receiving knowledge of the truth, those who have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit… for these, there is only a fearful expectation of God’s judgment.

But Hebrews 10:38&39 says ” And my righteous ones will live by faith but I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.

But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved”.

 

I think that last verse sums up all I’ve been saying…

Notice the righteous ones in that verse? Who are the righteous ones? Those who believe in Christ Jesus.

They will live by faith and their souls will be saved.

We who accept Jesus as our Lord and savior, who embrace the gift of salvation, who believe and live by faith will be saved.

As much as sin is terrible, our sin doesn’t mean that we are not saved. You don’t have to beat yourself up as a rejected soul by God when you sin… repent, listen to the tug of the Holy Spirit on your heart and turn back to God… this is not to say that we are to sin willfully and deliberately, that is totally wrong, I am just saying that our works as seen by the bible doesn’t make us saved/not saved.

We are saved when we believe in God, have the Holy Spirit in us and live in God’s light.

Another little tip for knowing if the spirit is in you? It’s not just by speaking in tongues, it’s by your fruits, what fruits do you produce? Read Galatians 5 for this.

Also, another way to know that the Spirit is in you… Do you still feel the need to pray? That’s him.

Do you still feel the need to worship God? That’s Him.

The Spirit leads us out of sin, helps us confess our sins and repent and helps us grow more in Christ.

Romans 8:16 says that “For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

Romans 8 also has a similarity to 2Cor 5. It talks about us being released from our physical bodies and also the Holy Spirit that has been given to us as a foretaste of this glory.

We are saved when we believe.

We are saved by the guarantee of the Spirit given to us.

We are God’s master pieces.

We are His.

 

PS: If you are reading this, then I hope I didn’t lose you somewhere in there. I have never seen the correlation between passages I used in this study before now and I will encourage you to really study the Bible as regards the above to really get into the word.

 

Blessings!

Love,

Frances!

PPS: please let me know if there is anything that is not very clear that you will love some more understanding on. I do not know it all but I willing to help out as much as I can. Also please feel free to say what you think about the statement ‘Once saved, always saved’. What comes to your mind at first sight of the sentence?

Have you read the last post?

Have questions/suggestions? – preciousthoughts2013@gmail.com

Chinomnso Precious!