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Choosing to live in perpetual sin while claiming “Once Saved Always Saved”
“But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.”
—1 John 3:8
It’s an indisputable fact of the universe: we will sin. The Bible even says, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth” (1 John 1:8 NLT).
Having said that, it doesn’t give us an excuse to go out and willfully sin against God.
Yet some Christians say, “I believe that once saved, always saved. And because I’m saved, because I’m justified, I can go out and pretty much do whatever I want to do.”
So, they live in a pattern of habitual and continual sin. Talk about missing the point. They have misunderstood and misused the wonderful biblical teaching known as justification.
The apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1 NKJV).
We see the word justification several times in the Book of Romans. Justification means that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, God forgives all our sin. He also places the righteousness of Christ into our spiritual account.
One-way justification has been defined is “just as if it never had happened.” The problem is that some Christians stop at salvation. They don’t understand that the fruit of salvation should be evident in their lives.
Whoever continues in sin without remorse is not in danger of losing their salvation; rather, by their choices, they reveal they may never have had salvation to begin with.
The Bible tells us that “when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 NLT).
God has justified us. And in light of that, we should want to live lives that honor Him.
-G.Laurie
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