Born Agains can not walk away from God

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A comment from a Born Again who had professed to me:

“if a person is born again, then they ARE always ready. They have their one way ticket to eternity with God and there is no way they can be caught off guard, detained, or otherwise distracted to miss the call when it comes. Ready or not, when the time comes, we are out of here.”

Is this possible?
 
Hebrews 10:26-29
For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifices for sins but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. a man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?

2 Peter 2:20-21
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Sounds to me like you can lose it!!!
-Dawn
 
Certain Christians-those who believe in being born again-believe that once you get saved then you undergo a change and the Holy Spirit will keep you from falling away. This is probably what your friend is referring to.

When you begin to explore their beliefs in detail you will observe that they don’t have as much confidence or freedom as they claim. Depending upon the denomination or sect, most will say that a Christian is someone who believes what they do or interpret the bible as they do. If you have questions or doubts then you aren’t a Christian. So often born againers have a very narrow definition of Christianity.

I have posted this before but in my SIL baptist church there was a young woman from an abusive home. She kept getting saved but would go out and have premarital sex and do other bad things. Instead of counseling the troubled woman to grow in her faith and perhaps supply her with emotional support, the church kept convincing her to get resaved because they believed that her salvation must not have took the first time. It was believed that the Holy Spirit would automatically make a change in her life and she would miracously stop sinning. So this girl was not given any advice on how to live a Christian life.
 
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deb1:
Certain Christians-those who believe in being born again-believe that once you get saved then you undergo a change and the Holy Spirit will keep you from falling away. This is probably what your friend is referring to.

When you begin to explore their beliefs in detail you will observe that they don’t have as much confidence or freedom as they claim. Depending upon the denomination or sect, most will say that a Christian is someone who believes what they do or interpret the bible as they do. If you have questions or doubts then you aren’t a Christian. So often born againers have a very narrow definition of Christianity.

I have posted this before but in my SIL baptist church there was a young woman from an abusive home. She kept getting saved but would go out and have premarital sex and do other bad things. Instead of counseling the troubled woman to grow in her faith and perhaps supply her with emotional support, the church kept convincing her to get resaved because they believed that her salvation must not have took the first time. It was believed that the Holy Spirit would automatically make a change in her life and she would miracously stop sinning. So this girl was not given any advice on how to live a Christian life.
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Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut. It really makes things clearer in perspective. I hope this woman you talked about has found some clarity in life. I know how she feels. But it is a good example where “works” comes into play. One must live like Christ to show faith in Christ. Probably not the write way to say it so I hope my last comment is not taken out of context.
 
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josephdavid:
A comment from a Born Again who had professed to me:

“if a person is born again, then they ARE always ready. They have their one way ticket to eternity with God and there is no way they can be caught off guard, detained, or otherwise distracted to miss the call when it comes. Ready or not, when the time comes, we are out of here.”

Is this possible?
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No. It is called “putting God to the test.”
 
That is the “Once Saved, Always Saved” assertion which the is scripturely false. See Catholic Answers documents on “Once Saved, Always Saved”.
 
Many “born agains” become backsliders.

… I smote him, I hid my face and was angry;
but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.
Isaiah 57:17
 
I want to be this dude!! Here is another response from a Born Again Christian friend of my cousins:

“When I was 16 years old I confessed my sins, repented of my sins, turned control of my life over to God and stopped sinning. I have led a victorious life since then. I can say this freely and any number of people can attest to the fact.”

I have to go to confession tonight. I wish I could be this guy. I only thought Christ and his blessed mother did not sin. :hmmm:
 
If being “born again” means one loses freewill, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

I’d rather be a sinning freeman than a saved robot. I would rather choose to love God rather than have God remove my choices from me.
 
We have freewill but we must chose to give ourselves completely to Christ to be truly free.

But with regards to the post I had made a few minutes ago… This dude needs a reality check. He might as well ask for forgivness now because God knows he has sinned. This dude just does not want to admit it.
 
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josephdavid:
A comment from a Born Again who had professed to me:

“if a person is born again, then they ARE always ready. They have their one way ticket to eternity with God and there is no way they can be caught off guard, detained, or otherwise distracted to miss the call when it comes. Ready or not, when the time comes, we are out of here.”

Is this possible?
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No. It is not. This is in line with what Luther said, that he could commit addultry 100 times per day and still go to Heaven. I am astonished by the idea that just because people say “Lord, Lord”…that they have a ticket to heaven even if they choose not to adhear to God’s laws. This is not Biblical. It is heresy. Threre is nothing in the Bible that indicates that Faith Alone will get you there. You have to live that faith day after day.

B
 
What about the theif on the Cross at time of Crucifixion who ask Christ not to forget him and Christ saved the theif?

This is the from the response I just received:
“Faith with out works can absolutely be salvation! What about the thief on the cross? He had no “works” at all, yet Jesus said he would be in paradice. What about people who CANNOT work? Such as people with mental or physical handicaps?”

Is it just me or is she taking WORKS out of context and taking it as literaly?

Where I see works not just being charitble and those such things but work to live like Christ instructed. Living to the commandments and when I fall I “work” to repair it. She really believes that Catholics believe we can pay our way out of sin in a literal sense. Commit adultry a 100 times and give to Charity and we are saved.
 
Gosh I love this stuff.

Let’s look at the thief on the cross. The important point here…he is on the CROSS! It would be nice to say that he could do good works, but he cannot. He is dying and does not have the opportunity. The point of the entire conversation about works is this: When you accept Christ you have to live in him. You show this through your loving works with Christ always in mind. This is how you show that your “profession of faith” was deeper than just words and a momentary assention. You live it every day.

The thief on the cross has no chance to live out his life in works because he is dying at the time. Thus, his profession of faith is sufficient. Had he been allowed to recover, he would have been expected to do works in his life to illustrate his relationship with Christ was more than just a passing thing.

I am not even going to address the thing about hadicapped people. Goodness me!

Brad
 
Sadie
YOU ROCK!!
Thank you. That helped alot.

Yes when mentioning people who can no work or handicapped people. I felt bad because I could not help to laugh. I realize she does not understand what the word WORKS means.

I am finding with Born Again Christian this whole Justification, Faith and Works issue is bigger than Mary (well… almost).
 
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josephdavid:
Sadie
YOU ROCK!!
Thank you. That helped alot.

Yes when mentioning people who can no work or handicapped people. I felt bad because I could not help to laugh. I realize she does not understand what the word WORKS means.

I am finding with Born Again Christian this whole Justification, Faith and Works issue is bigger than Mary (well… almost).
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No problem! I am glad that I could help. Stay strong!

Brad
 
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deb1:
Certain Christians-those who believe in being born again-believe that once you get saved then you undergo a change and the Holy Spirit will keep you from falling away. This is probably what your friend is referring to.
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We don’t believe that of course. The main practical problem I see with the view is that it makes it utterly impossible to tell who is a Christian and who is not.

Some people do fall away. Fact of life. And we don’t know in advance who they are going to be.

The view states that if someone falls away they can’t have been a Christian, born again, etc in the first place.

Since you do not know whether in the future someone will fall away, or even if you yourself will, you can have NO certainly that ANYONE is a Christian until they die.

Makes for a bit (a big bit) of a problem.

The other OSAS view of course would say that even if you do turn away, become a satanist or go out on daily rape, murder and pillaging sprees, or whatever else, you are still saved because you got saved earlier on and can’t be unsaved by your actions.
 
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asteroid:
We don’t believe that of course. The main practical problem I see with the view is that it makes it utterly impossible to tell who is a Christian and who is not.

Some people do fall away. Fact of life. And we don’t know in advance who they are going to be.

The view states that if someone falls away they can’t have been a Christian, born again, etc in the first place.

Since you do not know whether in the future someone will fall away, or even if you yourself will, you can have NO certainly that ANYONE is a Christian until they die.

Makes for a bit (a big bit) of a problem.

The other OSAS view of course would say that even if you do turn away, become a satanist or go out on daily rape, murder and pillaging sprees, or whatever else, you are still saved because you got saved earlier on and can’t be unsaved by your actions.
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These ideas are pretty sad when you think about it. The idea that once you are saved, no matter how corrupt you become later, is a little frightening…ok a lot frightening. If that is the case, Adolf Hitler who was baptized as a child, is going to be with us in Heaven. Somehow I seriously doubt it. The bottom line is that we are saved through the Grace of God and then we live out that grace in our actions. If we do not, then we deny scripture. When God tells us that whatever we do to the least of his brothers we do to him, this is what he is talking about. Thus, when Hitler killed millions of Jews, he was attacking God with every death, and Hitlers baptism has no real effect. Why? Because Hitler chose not to walk with God after baptism.

Now, this is not to say that we can’t make mistakes from time to time. We can. This is what forgiveness is all about. We all screw up from time to time, but it is when we go to repent that we rejoin God on the narrow path to heaven after we had departed from Him and that path via our sin.

Sound simple? It is! That is what is so utterly wonderful about God’s love. It is everlasting. God never forgets that we once made a commitment to serve him, but he asks that we live out that commitment in our lives. The idea that we can be saved and then live however we want is just false. It is no more accurate than saying that we can be saved and then sit on our hands and do nothing for the rest of our lives.

B
 
Philipians 2:12
So then, my beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

If we have to continue to WORK IT OUT, then it is not an absolute given that he have it.

Hebrews 3:11-15
As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest.”
Take care, brothers, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God. Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.
We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end, for it is said: “Oh, that today you would hear his voice: ‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.’”

So, it looks like that we can forsake God even after we have accepted him. And we are with Christ ONLY IF we persevere until the end.
 
No one can walk away from God, every knee shall bow.

But it is a problem with some when they wrongly think that once saved always saved.

How to explain it?, if you feel that you are no longer close to God, it wasnt Him who moved away. So to expand that thought, you cant loose the fact you were saved but you can walk away from it.

I love the way U2 puts it in the song “Vertigo”

And though your soul
it cant be bought
your mind can wander
 
Another great quote from this Born Again…

*"I am a saint right now. Anyone of God’s born-again righteous living children are saints. If we read over the scriptures we will see that PAUL is writing in many places, Peter and John and others also write. They (living men ) refer to the saints as those people who are currently living righteous lives before a sinful world.

The catholic church uses the term saints to mean those people who have died and then been canonized because of particularly good lives or accomplishments–whatever --thus according them special status or powers or an inside line to God. And the definition has been promoted so firmly that most people don’t know the original meaning of the word as it was used by NT Christianas.

Fine, but I am not waiting to be canonized, because Paul and Peter and others already call me a saint because of the work of Christ’s blood in my live. I already have special powers and an inside line to the throne of God. I received it all when I repented of my sins and was born again. I didn’t take it. I’m not bragging about it. No one assigned it to me. I’m simply stating a fact."*
 
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