Chapter 18
Contractual Obligations
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch
them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than
all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are
one.” [John 10:27-30 NIV]
No,
there is no reason to worry about being stolen from our Heavenly Father’s pen,
but this is not to say that the gate is kept closed [John 10:9]. For it would not fulfill our
Heavenly Father’s purposes to force anyone to spend all of eternity with Him in
His Kingdom of Heaven as an heir to all that is His in glory against their will
[John 1:12-13].
Therefore,
let us want to guard against taking too much for granted [1 Corinthians 10:12]. For this is surely a path that
leads to destruction [Matthew 15:13-14].
A
good example of taking too much for granted involves something that I have been
allowed and enabled to experience up close and oh so very personally. For
I was raised to believe that once a person is saved from eternal damnation
through the acceptance of Christ Jesus as truly being their own personal Lord
and Savior [John 3:16] that they would remain saved from
eternal damnation [Ezekiel 18:4]—no matter what [Psalms 25:3].
What
I am talking about is often referred to as being once saved/always saved, and I
clung to this doctrine with all of my might while I was out there sowing my wild oats. In fact, I would
often preach such to drunken choirs in bars when there were not any fair young
maidens around to try to entertain in other ways.
When
I was changed, it was all brought into focus for me [2 Corinthians 5:14-21]. For instead of it being like a contract that cannot be altered by
either party, the absolute truth of the matter truly is that a child of our
Heavenly Father’s family remains a member of His family for as long as they
want to because of how much He has always loved them [John 8:35].
In
other words, it is all about being wanted, and this is something that we can
all have faith in. For it truly is as it is written: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever
comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not
to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will
of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but
raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who
looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise
him up at the last day.” [John 6:37-40 NIV]
No,
it does not help matters much that it has been so widely taught that the love
of God is nothing personal. For that promotes an image of our Heavenly
Father not wanting anyone to perish [Ezekiel 18:32] as being more about keeping score
than anything else.
Alas,
what a dreadful thing to look forward to. For who would want to spend all
of eternity with someone who could not care less about whether they (as in
regards to them as an individual) are really there or not.
Yes,
it is quite natural to think that spending a relatively loveless eternity in
Heaven would be better than being cast into the Lake of Fire [Revelation 20:10-15], but if you would ask someone who is
spending their life in a loveless marriage, I am quite sure they would be of
the opinion that it would not be all that much better. For if spending
only twenty years in such a situation can feel like forever, just think what
FOREVER AND EVER is going to feel like if the love that our Heavenly Father has
for us is indeed completely devoid of passion.
Now,
what about us? For it is written: It is
impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the
heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness
of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be
brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son
of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that
drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those
for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that
produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In
the end it will be burned. [Hebrews 6:4-8 NIV]
Yes,
the absolute truth of the matter truly is that one can lose their salvation.
For in order for our Heavenly Father to truly have the kind of
relationship that He wants to have with each and every one of us, we must be
free to reject Him—even after the marriage vows have been exchanged [John 15:14-17].
Granted,
it can be correctly argued that not all who claim to have accepted Christ Jesus
as truly being their own personal Lord and Savior actually have [Matthew 7:21-23], and that they did not have any
salvation to lose when they appeared to fall away [2 Corinthians 11:13-15]. Nonetheless, such an argument
does not negate the fact that it is the same with us as it is with our Heavenly
Father’s holy angels [Jude 1:6].
No,
this does not have anything to do with us earning our keep [Romans 11:6]. It does, however, have
everything to do with us truly wanting to be one of our Heavenly Father’s
children by faith [Luke 9:23-26], and most are not even close, nor
have any desire to come closer, which places them in great danger of being spit
out of His mouth, come Judgment Day [Revelation 3:14-22].
Come
on now, all of you belligerent children be honest—is it not being
proven to you at this very moment that your heart is still far away from Him [Isaiah 29:13]?
For you feel a great uneasiness stirring deep down in your very soul,
which is not an unfamiliar feeling [John 16:8-11],
and yet you continue to resist because of how contrary what our Heavenly Father
actually says is absolutely true is in comparison to what you have really
placed your faith in [John 3:19-21].
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