Conditional Salvation

Friday, October 19, 2012, 7:09 a.m. – The Lord woke me this morning with this song:

My Prayer / An Original Work / May 30, 2011

“Fill me with Your Spirit; help me to love others;

Let me know Your power; be an overcomer.

Show me how to follow Jesus Christ, my Savior;

Be His faithful servant to obey Him always.

“Lead me with Your presence; help me know the right way;

Teach me love and kindness, generous compassion.

Give me grace and courage to be Jesus’ witness,

Teaching His salvation to a world who needs Him.”

Won’t you come and follow Jesus Christ, your Savior?

He died so you’d be free of control of your sin;

Free to follow His ways in complete surrender;

Living sacrifices – let His grace transform you.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Hebrews 3 (NIV 1984):

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

    do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion,

    during the time of testing in the desert,

where your fathers tested and tried me

    and for forty years saw what I did.

That is why I was angry with that generation,

    and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,

    and they have not known my ways.’

So I declared on oath in my anger,

    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

    do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion.”

Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Holy Brothers

God is speaking here to those who are in Christ Jesus by faith. We are the “holy” (set apart for God) “brothers” (of Christ and children of God). We are to fix (concentrate; focus) our thoughts (beliefs; considerations; attitudes; philosophies; ponderings; and attention) on Jesus. And, this takes discipline, choosing to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. Our minds wander to all sorts of things if we let them, but we have to catch ourselves, stop, then put off the wrong kinds of thoughts and attitudes, and put on godly thinking and reasoning. We all need to do this!

Satan loves to put all kinds of fears, doubts, and lies into our minds, and we must regularly resist him and draw near to God. We must daily put on the armor of God with which to fight off Satan’s evil schemes and attacks against our minds. For our minds are great battle fields, and are the places where the fight is either won or lost before it ever moves to the next level. You have heard it said, “We are what we think.” The Bible says that what comes out of our mouths is what comes from our hearts (what we feel, think and believe).

So, if we want to say and do the right kinds of things, we need to first get control of our minds. And, we can’t control our minds if what we are daily feeding into our minds is counterproductive. In other words, we must guard our hearts and minds against anything that sets itself up against God and against the truths of his word. We need to test everything we do, hear, participate in, etc. against God’s holy word. We must rid our lives of all the junk and trash we feed our minds on a daily basis, and instead we need to focus our minds and attitudes on Christ Jesus, on his word, and on obeying what he teaches us.

Courage and Hope

There is a direct parallel here between the deliverance of Israel from slavery to Egypt and its Pharaoh, and our deliverance from slavery to sin and the control of Satan over our lives. One was a physical deliverance. The second is spiritual. Moses was a man who was faithful as a servant in God’s house. Jesus Christ is the Son who is faithful as the architect, the builder and the ruler (King and Priest) over God’s house, his temple, our hearts, and corporately the true church, the Body of Christ. “We are his house (his temple) IF we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.”

This last statement, and another like it in this passage, presents a theological issue for many a follower of Christ, yet it is consistent throughout the New Testament, beginning with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some people write this off as though those who do not endure to the end in faith and hope were not really followers of Christ to begin with. I agree that is probably true in most cases, as their faith most likely never took root, but was superficial and shallow (see the Parable of the Sower). Yet, I also see a common thread throughout the New Testament, including in the teachings of Jesus (see John 15; Cf. Rom. 11:22), that suggests that those who are actually in Christ Jesus can be cut off as Israel was cut off due to unbelief. You can’t be cut off of something you were never first a part of.

Unbelieving Hearts

If we take this passage here in context, we see that it is addressed to the “holy brothers.” We cannot be “holy brethren” if we are not in Christ. The warning here is to the “holy brothers,” i.e. to true believers, to not harden our hearts; to not have sinful, unbelieving hearts that turn away from the living God. And, again there is a parallel between the children of Israel in the OT and true Israel (the Body of Christ) in the NT concerning disobedience and unbelief of those who were once followers of God, and of their not being permitted to enter into God’s eternal rest (eternity with God in heaven; our Sabbath-rest).

There are two conditional phrases in this passage of scripture that both begin with the word “IF.” “We are his house, IF we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.” And, “We have come to share in Christ IF we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at first.” These are both consistent throughout the teachings of the New Testament, including in Jesus Christ’s concluding remarks to the churches in Revelation (see Rev. 2-3). True faith is continuous and enduring faith that lasts to the end. Both of these “IF” phrases have parallels in other “IF” verses in the NT: See 1 Co. 15:2; Col. 1:21-23; 2 Tim. 2:10-13; 2 Peter 1:5-11; and 1 John 2:24-25.

Whether you are able to justify the belief that this must be speaking of false brothers, or you hold to the belief that this is speaking to true followers of Christ, and the danger of thinking one has his salvation guaranteed unconditionally, and the warning against having sinful, unbelieving hearts that turn away from the God we once held dear to our hearts, the reality is clear that our salvation entails so much more than just an initial “receiving” of Jesus Christ into “one’s heart.”

These scriptures, and others like them, make it quite clear that true faith is continuous, faithful, enduring, believing, trusting, and does not continue in willful sin. It is also quite clear that it is possible to believe in vain, if we do not hold firmly (in thought, belief and practice) to the word (truths) of God. They also make it quite clear that Christ will present us holy in his sight, without accusation, “IF we continue in our faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” So, don’t take your salvation lightly or think that God’s grace means you can live how you want and still have your ticket to heaven. True faith chooses to leave our lives of sin behind us and to turn to God in faithful obedience and surrender to his will and purposes for our lives, and it lasts to the end.

Encourage One Another

It is, thus, highly critical that we daily encourage one another in the faith. When God is speaking here of the necessity of encouragement to keep us from having sinful, unbelieving hearts that turn away from the living God, he is not talking about the kind of encouragement we often think of when we hear that word. We often interpret that word only in terms that make us feel good about ourselves and where we are, even if we are living in sin and unbelief. We like to give each other pats on the back and words of praise and cheer, and those are good things as long as they are not lies and deceptions, and as long as they are not exclusive of true inspiration, urging, nurturing and motivating our fellow believers in Christ toward holy and godly living, and of the absolute necessity of understanding that true faith is active, obedient, submissive, continuous and repentant.

So, if you have been holding on to the notion that all you have to do is “believe” but without a true understanding of what it means to believe, and you think you can still live to please yourself and do what you want with little to no regard for God’s will and purposes for your life, then think again. Be so careful that you follow the truths of scripture and not the words of men, who want to make you feel good about yourself, even if you have a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God in thought and in practice. Listen to God speaking to your heart today, heed his warnings, and commit all your ways to him.

By Your Grace / An Original Work / June 27, 2011

Speak Your words to my heart,

Let Your grace and love impart.

Be to me all I need

To love and serve Christ my King;

To love and serve Christ my King.

Change my heart; be like You;

Let me love and serve in truth.

Guide my steps ev’ry day,

As I bow my knees and pray;

As I bow my knees and pray.

Love You, Lord. You love me.

You died so that I’d go free

From my sin; pure within;

By Your grace I’m saved from sin;

By Your grace I’m saved from sin.

Invite You in my heart;

Now I have a brand new start.

Repented of my sin,

So that I’d be cleansed within;

So that I’d be cleansed within.

Live for You ev’ry day,

List’ning to the words you say.

Make You Lord of my heart;

Be Your witness, grace impart;

Be Your witness, grace impart.

Obey Your ev’ry word;

Do the things I’ve seen and heard.

Your word, Lord, in me burns,

While I wait for Your return;

While I wait for Your return.

By Your Grace: http://youtu.be/ikIhIASOw1c

My Prayer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4hFxxfJ8DA