Losing salvation

Yes, I absolutely believe that a real Christian can sin and lose their salvation. By that I do not mean that sins of ignorance lead you there, or even that by simply failing to be perfect (since we can't be perfect, that's where grace comes in) causes one to lose one's salvation.

I am not saying that there is a specific sin that can cause an individual to lose his salvation since I think that the sinning that causes a person to lose his or her salvation is dependant on the individual himself. How that person thinks about himself and his sin. As when Paul says that to eat unclean foods is not a sin unless you eat without being fully convinced in your own mind. Therefore to consciously keep doing something that you fully believe is sinful, or someone who deliberately hurts other people all the time, knowing the hurt he or she is causing - those are things that can cause a person to lose their salvation.

I think there is a deliberate and conscious choice involved in losing one's salvation just as there is a deliberate and conscious choice involved in choosing one's salvation. I don't believe there is a formula involved in either so I can't say precisely what could cause another to lose that salvation. I could say, if I knew a person well, if I thought they were in danger of losing their salvation based on how they live, as when Christians are told to warn each other in brotherly love.

Where maybe I could, theoretically, given what I believe about divorce, divorce my husband without feeling any condemnation, that doesn't mean that it would not be sinful for another person.

In Galatians, Paul says "Be not deceived for God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption" but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

There are a lot of Christians whose lives show nothing of what they claim to believe. Who use the liberty of Christ for license to sin. The above verse shows it isn't a matter of losing some sort of reward in Heaven but of reaping corruption, or spiritual death.

In the parable of the talents, one of those who is given a talent buries it instead of using it to create more wealth. He is like the Christian who, having professed Christ, believes he is always saved, but he is not. He is not living his faith.

As to fear of Hell - some people start at that point and then learn to love God. Others love God first, and what "fear" of God there is comes as they consider the I AM that I AM. There's nothing wrong with a prod of fear as every parent knows although if the fear aspect overrides the mercy aspect, there is a problem.

And you know, it took me a while to realize we were thinking different things when you talk about "rewards" in Heaven, since I have never understood that as anything more than a metaphor. I've never thought about losing or gaining some sort of special, tangible reward in Heaven and I'm still not sure that isn't just a metaphor like the vineyard.

It isn't fear that drives me at all, except in the way that I am sometimes overwhelmed as in "Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made...."

As a child, I think I was born with a sense of the divine that never really left me in the sense that I did not have to learn it. I first loved God. Then later, I learned fear because the church that I grew up in, while not given to fire and brimstone sermons, told me that no one could ever know they were saved until they died. I had loved God wholly and unselfconsciously. Now there was fear. For myself, for my family. I couldn't imagine wanting to be in Heaven if anyone I loved was in Hell.

But I never entirely swallowed that no one can ever know line either, because I had the gift of loving God from the time I was born. Without that gift though, I can easily see how people might have been overwhelmed by despair. Me, more or less around the age of six, decided "bullshit." Around fourteen or fifteen I stopped going to church. I am a pretty self-contained person. It wasn't a big "I am turning my back on the church" thing. It just didn't strike me as relevant. God was always in my life.

I think now, that not going to church, probably saved my life. I think it would have worn me down eventually. They would surely have excommunicated me somewhere down the line because I don't think I could have kept my mouth shut forever and I would almost surely have offended the powers-that-be, and the powers-that-be in the church where I grew up are close relatives. *G* Excommunication would have been a big deal in terms of relating to my neighbours and if I had built my house on that sand, I would have no ground under me. Now I am just a fairly run-of-the-mill heathen, I think, in people's eyes. This area isn't so completely suffocatingly Mennonite anymore either, and I can't think of a Mennonite family in which a divorce hasn't happened. But back then...

Don't know if I'm clarifying anything or further confusing the issue? When is your surgery? I'll be praying for you. Next week, probably Wednesday, I'll be leaving on a trip.

Layla