1–10: How certain are you of your salvation?

• Anything less than a 10, this devotion is for you. But it’s a reminder for everyone.
• If God asks you why He should let you into heaven, what would you say?
  • Do you start with everything YOU did or what JESUS did?
• You cannot lose your salvation in Jesus once you repent of your sins, accept Jesus as your Lord and savior, and are a sincere, true believer and follower of Jesus.
• There is nothing you can do on your own accord to earn salvation other than putting your faith given to us by grace in Jesus, once you’re saved, you’re saved.
  • You can’t be a good enough person, or do enough good acts.
  • That would mean God owes you salvation, God doesn’t owe anyone anything.
• Situations of people leaving the faith are addressed in verses below.
• Theological and lots of scripture, stay with me!

John 10:27–29 (ESV)

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

• NOTHING can steal us from God.
• Strongest passages in Bible about eternal security of every true Christian.

John 6:37–40 (ESV)

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. … For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

• He will never cast those out who comes to Jesus.
• All God has chosen will come to him for salvation.
  • For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30)
    • He knew who would choose him, and He carries them through to glorification.
      • God’s promises never fail.
• Even though God is sovereign, he still works through faith, YOUR faith in Jesus.
• Point is that those the Father gives to Jesus, Jesus WILL raise them up on the last day, not maybe, not if they did enough good things.
  • Only thing you have to do is look to Jesus, and believe in Him.

Romans 8:38–39 (ESV)

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love.
  • Your sin and actions don’t separate you, Christ died for those.

Ephesians 1:13–14 (ESV)

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

• Must be heard and then believed to receive salvation.
• Once you believe, the spirit dwells in us and preserves our eternal salvation.
• Seal refers to an official mark of identification.
  • Wax on a letter that is pressed down.
  • The document under the authority of whoever sealed it.
    • We are under the authority of God forever.
    • Holy Spirit is the pledge/deposit given to us by God of our future inheritance and eternal life with Jesus.
    • Is this inheritance promised? Can we lose this inheritance?

1 Peter 1:3–5 (ESV)

...to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

• Imperishable - inheritance doesn’t pass away.
• Undefiled - inheritance is unstained with evil.
• Unfading - earthly inheritance passes away, our inheritance of eternal presence with God never passes away.

What about those that apostasize, or leave the faith?

Jude 24 (ESV)

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.

• The power of Christ sustains sincere believers from apostasizing, falling away from the faith.
• True believers never want to stop following Jesus, repeat that again.
  • 1 John 2:19 (ESV)
    • They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

• Works don’t save us, only by grace through faith in Jesus.
  • Not only grace, but faith is also a gift from God.
  • So nothing at all can be done of our own power, only by God.
  • We cannot hold onto our own salvation, only God can.
  • If we think works save us, we are saying Jesus sacrifice on the cross wasn’t enough.
  • If we are saying we can lose our salvation that means we did something good enough to earn it.
    • We didn’t, Jesus did.
• You gain your salvation ONLY by God’s grace, and ONLY through faith in ONLY Jesus.
  • Some say aren’t all religions just different ways of looking at God? Allah, Buddha, other false gods.
    • No. They don’t believe in the one true God, and they don’t believe

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