BIBLICAL TRUTHS (Part 1)
The story is told of a young girl who accepted Christ as her Savior and applied for membership in a local church. “Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your life?” inquired an old deacon.
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Well, are you still a sinner?”
“To tell you the truth, I feel I’m a greater sinner than ever.”
“Then what real change have you experienced?”
“I don’t quite know how to explain it,” she said, “except that I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now I’m saved. I’m a sinner running from sin!” she was received into the fellowship of the church, and she proved by her consistent life that she was truly converted.
One unmistaken evidence that you have accepted Christ is that you are converted and literarily run away from sin just like that young girl did. Any doctrine that tells you that once saved you are forever saved irrespective of how you live is false doctrine.
God does not give anything fake. It is true also that He gives eternal life that no one may perish nor be plugged out of His hand as people believe today. That is true concerning the power of God to keep us eternally. Notwithstanding, just the way salvation did not jump on us, we took practical steps to make it happen; we confessed and forsook our sins, likewise, we remain saved by staying away from those sins that we forsook. That is not salvation by our works, it is the continuation of the practical steps that brought us into the experience of salvation.
“For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” Galatians 2:18. If truly a change happened to you when you gave your life to Christ (II Cor 5:17), you cannot build again or go back to the things you destroyed and still claim to be saved. Doing that will make you a transgressor. Righteous living is what guarantees eternal security.
