Sue J Love
Loyal
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2015
- Messages
- 3,225
“And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.’” (Luke 9:23-26 NASB1995)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB1995)
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:11-14 NASB1995)
“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin…
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?...
“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:5-7,12-16,20-23 NASB1995)
[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-21; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]
Where I believe many people are “missing the boat” is when it comes to the meaning of salvation being by grace through faith alone. Yes, we are not saved by our own fleshly “good works” of our own doing, of our human nature. But if you read the above passages of Scripture it becomes quite clear that faith which is genuine results in the good works that God has for us to do, as his workmanship, and that our salvation and eternal life with God hinge on whether or not we do those good works, which include us dying with him to sin and us walking in obedience to his commands.
For, if we are going to come after Christ we must deny self, die daily to sin, and follow our Lord in obedience. And the grace of God is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, while we wait for our Lord’s return. But if sin is what we practice, and not obedience to our Lord, we don’t have salvation from sin nor eternal life with God. And more than not, “struggling” with sin means regularly (as a pattern of behavior) deliberately choosing to commit the same sins over again, usually, but not always, in the area of sexual sin.
So this idea of “by grace through faith alone” is generally used in a sense to not teach the critical nature of death to sin and obedience to God as required of God for us to have genuine salvation from sin and eternal life with God. This is one of the reasons verse 10 of Ephesians 2 is rarely included with verses 8-9, which then gives a half-truth message which makes it then not true in entirety. For this is a key passage for those teaching that no works are required of us and that they don’t matter for eternity. But they do!
Biblical salvation is contingent on us obeying the Lord and us forsaking our sins. We don’t have assurance of salvation from sin if we are walking in disobedience to the Lord and in addictive sin. All throughout these Scriptures noted and quoted above, and many more, we are taught that genuine faith results in obedience to our Lord and the forsaking of our sin, but if sin is what we obey, and not obedience to God, in practice, we do not have the promise of salvation nor of eternal life with God. So obedience to our Lord is very much a condition for salvation (see noted and quoted verses above).
But this is not us doing “good deeds” to earn our salvation. This is walking in the salvation that our Lord provided, but which has conditions to be met by us for us to receive that salvation and that eternal life with God. These are not my words. Read the Scriptures. They say it loud and clear. If we profess faith in Jesus but sin is what we practice, and if obedience to God is not what we practice, we don’t know God, we are not in fellowship with God, but we are of the devil, and we will face the wrath of God, not his love and grace.
And read 1 John 1:9 in its full context, and study what that word “confess” means in the Greek. It means to align with and to agree with God, not just that we sinned, but regarding the result of that sin, too, if we do not repent and obey our Lord in life practice. “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Action words are all throughout these Scriptures. Action words are used to describe what it means to have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. Faith, which is biblical, = obedience. Disobedience = unbelief. The problem is that this is not being taught much at all, but most everyone is being fed the idea that how they live will not impact their salvation or their eternal life. And Scriptures are being taught out of context, and key Scriptures are being ignored and left out when they are in context. Yes, we will not be perfect, but if sin is our habit, and not obedience to God, then we are not promised salvation or eternal life with God. We are promised the opposite.
Is Our Salvation Conditional Upon Our Obedience?
An Original Work / February 23, 2025 / Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB1995)
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:11-14 NASB1995)
“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin…
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?...
“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:5-7,12-16,20-23 NASB1995)
[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-21; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]
Where I believe many people are “missing the boat” is when it comes to the meaning of salvation being by grace through faith alone. Yes, we are not saved by our own fleshly “good works” of our own doing, of our human nature. But if you read the above passages of Scripture it becomes quite clear that faith which is genuine results in the good works that God has for us to do, as his workmanship, and that our salvation and eternal life with God hinge on whether or not we do those good works, which include us dying with him to sin and us walking in obedience to his commands.
For, if we are going to come after Christ we must deny self, die daily to sin, and follow our Lord in obedience. And the grace of God is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, while we wait for our Lord’s return. But if sin is what we practice, and not obedience to our Lord, we don’t have salvation from sin nor eternal life with God. And more than not, “struggling” with sin means regularly (as a pattern of behavior) deliberately choosing to commit the same sins over again, usually, but not always, in the area of sexual sin.
So this idea of “by grace through faith alone” is generally used in a sense to not teach the critical nature of death to sin and obedience to God as required of God for us to have genuine salvation from sin and eternal life with God. This is one of the reasons verse 10 of Ephesians 2 is rarely included with verses 8-9, which then gives a half-truth message which makes it then not true in entirety. For this is a key passage for those teaching that no works are required of us and that they don’t matter for eternity. But they do!
Biblical salvation is contingent on us obeying the Lord and us forsaking our sins. We don’t have assurance of salvation from sin if we are walking in disobedience to the Lord and in addictive sin. All throughout these Scriptures noted and quoted above, and many more, we are taught that genuine faith results in obedience to our Lord and the forsaking of our sin, but if sin is what we obey, and not obedience to God, in practice, we do not have the promise of salvation nor of eternal life with God. So obedience to our Lord is very much a condition for salvation (see noted and quoted verses above).
But this is not us doing “good deeds” to earn our salvation. This is walking in the salvation that our Lord provided, but which has conditions to be met by us for us to receive that salvation and that eternal life with God. These are not my words. Read the Scriptures. They say it loud and clear. If we profess faith in Jesus but sin is what we practice, and if obedience to God is not what we practice, we don’t know God, we are not in fellowship with God, but we are of the devil, and we will face the wrath of God, not his love and grace.
And read 1 John 1:9 in its full context, and study what that word “confess” means in the Greek. It means to align with and to agree with God, not just that we sinned, but regarding the result of that sin, too, if we do not repent and obey our Lord in life practice. “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Action words are all throughout these Scriptures. Action words are used to describe what it means to have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. Faith, which is biblical, = obedience. Disobedience = unbelief. The problem is that this is not being taught much at all, but most everyone is being fed the idea that how they live will not impact their salvation or their eternal life. And Scriptures are being taught out of context, and key Scriptures are being ignored and left out when they are in context. Yes, we will not be perfect, but if sin is our habit, and not obedience to God, then we are not promised salvation or eternal life with God. We are promised the opposite.
Is Our Salvation Conditional Upon Our Obedience?
An Original Work / February 23, 2025 / Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
