God's grace...incomprehensible.

There is something that's been troubling me for a while now about Christianity and God's grace. Once I never for a second considered that a Christian who had accepted His grace could ever lose their salvation, fall from grace, or be anything less than a Christian, no matter what. Lately though, I have heard several of my friends claiming that they believed it was possible to lose salvation. They said that God would not let go of a person, but that if that person completely denied Jesus and His grace and walked away, they would be letting go of God.

I came to a point in which I almost began to accept this idea. Maybe it was true. However, over and over the very idea unsettled me. It felt as if this belief left one insecure and cheapened grace. I recalled Bible verses speaking of the fact that God would never let someone go, and I looked at my own sinful life and wondered where the line would be crossed and if I would ever cross that line and lose God somehow. It was a terrifying idea. But mostly, it felt like such a wrong one. In my heart, I could not believe grace would work that way.

I think one of the hardest things for a person is to understand God's grace; it is beyond comprehension in its power. We are selfish and unforgiving by nature and we know that we do not desire to be forgiven ourselves, yet Christ forgives countless people countless times. Even the most vile of sins (though technically, God does not rate sins on a scale as humans tend to do) have been forgiven by Christ. Paul and David were both murderers, for instance, and they are some of the "giants" of the Bible.

On that note, it was this issue of David that I first recalled to mind when I was seriously struggling with the idea of the permanency of salvation. Psalms records various instances of David's life, from his highest highs to his lowest lows. Psalm 51 was, apparently, written after David had not only committed adultery with Bathsheba but had also murdered her husband. Does he write, "God, save me; I've rejected You and lost my salvation?" Not at all! Verse 12 says instead, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation." Not restore to me Your salvation, but the joy. This verse makes it clear that David was still counted among God's saved, even in spite of such devastating sins, and that David was begging to feel the joy he had once felt in his relationship with God. It does not imply at all that he had lost his actual salvation, or that he ever would lose it.

Paul, who calls himself the "chief of sinners" and had once persecuted Christians, describes his assurance of God's salvation:

"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39.

If we cannot save ourselves, how could we "unsave" ourselves? Especially if nothing can separate us from the love of Christ? What sin would be great enough that Jesus would say, "Sorry, that's enough. You've turned your back on Me this time with that particular sin. Clearly you don't want to be saved. So say goodbye to the Holy Spirit you've been sealed with. I said I would never leave or forsake you, but that was on the condition that you would be good enough for Me."

No! He would never cheapen grace. He covers all sins, past and present and future. He knows the mistakes we are going to commit before we commit them and He has forgiven them before we even ask for forgiveness. He seals us with the Holy Spirit, dwells inside us, and promises never to leave.

Can we possibly deny Jesus and then be "unsaved"? Of course not! We deny Jesus with every single sin we commit. When we lie, think hateful thoughts, lust, or deliberately refuse to do what God told us to do. We deny Jesus in our lives every time we fail to live up to His standards, every time we fall. We deny Him every day! Our human nature is simply made that way. There is no point where we turn our backs on God and He gives up on us. If we have accepted His salvation, He already has us covered. We can fall from a close relationship with Him by falling into sin and not seeking Him as we should (every relationship requires effort!), but we cannot lose Him forever.

We are secure. God's promises are forever. If He said He would never leave us, He will never leave us! His grace covers it all. The trouble is we always feel that something will tear us away from Him, that somehow we have to work for salvation and do something to be good enough, or that it's possible to do something to not be good enough. The truth is, we never were and never will be good enough. That's not the point of grace though. The point is that He lovingly gives us what we do not deserve. It is beyond comprehension to us, but freely given. God's just that cool. ;)