Let’s discuss one of the most controversial topics of Christianity.  Can you or can you not lose your salvation?  This is an age old argument that has been going on for several hundred years.

God gives us a free gift in salvation and there is nothing we can ever do to earn it.  The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9 that we are saved by grace through faith and not of ourselves.  It is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.  So if we can’t earn it, can it be taken away from us?

I personally believe that once you have asked for salvation, you receive it instantly, and that it will never be taken away.  Some people believe that we can lose our salvation or give it back, but I think this goes against what the Bible teaches.  We do not deserve God’s salvation.  So my reasoning is simply this:  If God gave us a gift that we do not deserve, then why would He take it back later because we don’t deserve it?  We didn’t deserve it in the first place and He knew it.  He also knows everything that we will ever do, good or bad, and He still chose to save us.  So being that nothing takes God by surprise, why would He give us this free gift of salvation knowing all of our future sins if He was going to end up taking it back?  That makes no sense.

Also, if you can lose your salvation, then where is the line that you cross that finally makes God decide to take it back?  Where is the point of no return where Jesus’ blood no longer covers our sin?  If there is a sin that we can commit that Jesus cannot pay for, then His death was in vain and it means nothing.  Salvation and God’s entire plan for our redemption falls apart if this is the case.

Jesus plainly tells Nicodemus that he cannot go to Heaven unless he is born again.  He refers to salvation as being born into the family of God.  Once you are born, you cannot be unborn.  There is just no way to crawl back into the womb and shrivel up and cease to exist.  It’s impossible.  I think that’s why Jesus referred to salvation this way, so we could understand it.  Once we are born into God’s family, we cannot be unborn from it.

Look at the way Paul described salvation.  He referred to it as being adopted into God’s family.  Why did he use this analogy?  Because in the time they lived in, you could legally disown your biological children if you chose to do so.  But if you adopted a child, you could never disown that child.  Legally it was yours forever and you were committed to be that child’s parent until the day you died.

Romans 10:9 says that if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord, then we shall be saved.  Not will be but shall be.  When the Bible uses the term “shall,” then it means that it is absolutely certain with no doubt.  There is evidence all throughout the Bible that tells us that once we receive salvation, then it is ours to keep and there is nothing we can do about it.  Thank God.

Garry

So what’s the answer?  I absolutely believe that God exists.  That belief is foundational to everything that I am.  It is the cornerstone to my life.  Of course I’ve asked myself that question several times also.  I think anyone would be lying if they said otherwise.

So if I believe that God exists, can I prove it?  Absolutely not.  There is no way I could ever prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that God really exists.  And conversely, there is no one on Earth who could prove that He does not exist.  To me, all these scientists that say the universe just appeared out of nowhere and blah blah blah just don’t make any sense to me.  They can theorize all day long, and they frequently do, but they just don’t know.  Let’s pick this apart.

Let’s just say that someone who lives here on Earth may have 70 or 80 good years at the most.  Nobody has lived since the beginning of the earth so nobody really knows for sure how long the universe or the planets or this particular planet has existed.  It’s all theory.  Now sure there’s evidence all over the place to examine but there is just no way to prove one way or the other if the earth has been here for 10,000 years or 6 billion years.  It’s all theory.  It’s all speculation.  Personally I don’t think it’s that important to know.  I accept it like this:  If God thought it was important enough for us to know, He would have told us.

Even though I cannot prove to you that God exists, I think that God instilled an internal mechanism in us that tells us that there is something out there that is greater than ourselves.  If someone has never heard of God from another person, that person still is aware that someone is with him.

What do you think?

Garry

About 10 years ago, I went through some evangelism training at my church and one of the exercises we did was to write down our testimony from a before and after salvation perspective.  There were some hints to help out in case you had a hard time thinking of things to write about.  I don’t remember the whole list, but it included things like:

• Living a bad life before versus living for God now
• Going to Hell before versus going to Heaven now
• Hopelessness before versus hope now
• Being alone before versus always having God with you

When I got to the fourth one, I could immediately identify with the fact that I never questioned whether or not God was with me.  I was so aware of it, I didn’t give it much thought, I just knew He was there.  No matter where I was or what I was doing, He was there with me and for me.  I actually got kind of cocky about it.  I NEVER questioned that God was with me.  You know what happened next.

A couple of years ago I went through a hard time with several things at the same time and it seemed like it lasted forever.  Satan took my cocky awareness and attacked it head on.  Actually my guard was probably down because I was so confident about the fact that I knew I was never alone.

I became depressed and for the first time in my life, I felt like God had turned His back on me.  He left me for more important things and I was all alone to fend for myself.  It was one of the lowest points that I’ve experienced.  I knew in my heart that I was wrong, but I was not listening to my heart.  I was listening to the father of lies.  Satan had sold me on the fact that God really didn’t care about the day to day experiences of my life.  I was not good enough for God to be involved in my affairs.  I was going through this bad time because I had lived so badly that God gave up on me.

It was all lies.

Thank you God that you have never left me alone for one nanosecond.  It’s a comforting feeling that while I may not ever get to meet the President or someone “important”, I have direct and instant access to the Creator of the universe.  He planned it that way from the beginning.

Please share some of your experiences.

Garry

One of my favorite Christian songs is one written by Rich Mullins and it is sang (or sung) by Amy Grant.  The name of it is “Nothing Is Beyond You.”  This song is taken directly from Psalm 139.  The psalmist is describing how big God and His reach are.  The lyrics are as follows:

Where could I go
Where could I run
Even if I found the strength to fly

And if I rose on the wings of the dawn
And crashed through the corner of the sky

If I sailed past the edge of the sea
Even if I made my bed in Hell, still there you would find me

Chorus

Cause nothing is beyond You
You stand beyond the reach
Of our vain imaginations,
Our misguided piety
The heavens stretch to hold You
And deep cries out to deep
Sayin’ that nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You
Time can not contain You
You fill eternity
Sin can never stain You
Death has lost its sting
And I can not explain the way
You came to love me
Except to say nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You

If I should shrink back from the light
If I could sink into the dark

If I take cover and I close my eyes
Even then, You would see my heart

And you’d cut through all my pain and rage
The darkness is not dark to You and night’s as bright as day

Chorus

Nothing is beyond You

According to the Bible, there is nowhere we could go to escape God’s sight or His reach.  When the psalmist wrote this, he was describing the geographical extremes that were known at the time.  He was saying that if he went as far East as he could go; “If I rose on the wings of the dawn and crashed through the corner of the sky” (in the direction of the Sun and up through the sky) or if he went as far West as he could go; “If I sailed past the edge of the sea” (the Mediterranean Sea was the farthest known part of the world.)  And then he drops the bomb that he could not even travel to the depths of Hell and escape God’s reach.

The chorus describes God’s size and strength.  Many extremes are used and my favorite is “deep cries out to deep.”  When you think about that, it’s really deep.  Get it?

When you accept this truth that God is everywhere and there is nowhere that He is not, it’s a very comforting feeling.  You realize that nothing you do ever takes God by surprise.  But guess what?  He loves us anyway with a love that we cannot possibly imagine.  I love the fact that no matter where I go or what I’m doing, that God is always there just waiting for me to call to Him.

Welcome to GreenFactor.  This blog is dedicated to studying the bible.  We will be discussing passages throughout the bible and how it pertains to our lives today.  Why the name GreenFactor you ask?  Why not?  I just like it.  So let me tell you a little about myself.

My name is Garry and I am 40 years old and my wife and I have 4 children.  I was born and raised in Tennessee and we still live here today.  I love to study history and especially the history of the Bible.  It is a phenomenal book that I believe God gave us as a directional tool for living our lives.  I have been a Christian since I was 8 years old.  Now what exactly does that mean to be a Christian?  In today’s world it means a lot of different things to different people.  Starting out this blog I thought it would be fun to dive right in to the most important and most controversial subject in the Bible;  Jesus.  Let me tell you what I believe it means to be a Christian.

I believe that being a Christian means that you understand that you have made mistakes in your life (called sin) and that we need some help.  The Bible tells us that we all have this problem and no one is excluded.  Because of these sins that we have committed, we have separated ourselves from God.  We owe him a debt.  God requires a blood sacrifice to pay for sin.  Now in the Old Testament times we could simply sacrifice an animal to pay for our sins.  The sacrifice could not just be any old animal.  It could not be the old sick lamb in the field that was going to die anyway in a couple of days.  It had to be a perfect lamb without blemish.  The best of the best.  But God had a better plan on the way.

God looked at our sin problem and realized there was no way we could pay the debt that we owed Him.  So He provided a Lamb for us.  The perfect lamb.  He sent His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.  God asked Jesus pay for our sins so that we could go to Heaven.

Is that all?  Is it that simple?  I think God made it simple so everyone could understand it.  That is all we have to do according to the Bible.  The Bible states the same message over and over in different ways but it boils down to the fact that the only thing required to reach Heaven is a belief that Jesus paid our debt for us.  It’s such an easy concept to grasp but at the same time, how do we trust someone whom we have never met with the greatest decision of our lives?  I personally believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.  Jesus Himself said so.  There are millions of arguments out there to the contrary and we could discuss this one issue until the end of time.  I would like to hear some feedback on this.  Agree with me or not.  That is the purpose of this blog.  Thanks for reading.

Garry