Thread by @VictoryOlaleye, We need to know this!Salvation is a process: beginning when you first [...]

We need to know this!
Salvation is a process: beginning when you first believed & consummated when you see Jesus.
The knowledge of this makes you humble about the grace of God yet confident (not one without the other).
The reason many scriptures relate overcoming with the Exodus.

The salvation of the people were two-fold:
- Coming out of Egypt
- Coming into the Promise.
We are always told not everybody who got the first attained to the second, why?
Unbelief.
But unbelief doesn’t just hit people once, it often comes from persistent disobedience.

So then many of the confidence people express (when it doesn’t come with the necessary sense of seriousness & watchfulness - soberness as the KJV calls it) is merely flesh, not spirit.

Yes! People can be confident in error, if not these ones would not be explaining to Jesus.

They’d been so sure they were in the right. It’s one thing to tell (deceive) others that you are of God, but another to tell Jesus Himself:
“But I did all these on your behalf”
They even called Him “Lord” what we know is salvation...but it wasn’t by the Spirit, it was flesh.

They had called Him “Lord” but had not made Him Lord, this puts a whole new perspective into Romans 10:9-10. The declaration is by a heart of faith, aided by the Spirit and initializes submission to Jesus Christ as Master.
And the proof of your salvation is your continuing in it.

And so there are ramifications in which the Bible says:
“Ye are saved” - it begun & you’re in it (our faith)
But there are also ramifications in which it says:
“We shall be saved” - it will be consummated in you when Jesus comes (our hope).

Therefore one very vital thing along with his intercession that our Lord Jesus does for us to keep us till His coming is to cleanse us with His word. This involves both the encouragements of grace and corrections in grace by His Spirit.

Why is this important?
Because even though sin might not automatically make one fail at receiving the grace of God in salvation, it can get one there eventually.
Don’t be deceived.
One can be progressively led into being spiritually insensitive to God being hardened by sin.

And so the word of God comes at us everytime; the Spirit of God supplying us with grace and guidance, even when we miss it, encouraging us to confidently trust in the work of Christ, and receive the mercy of God, abiding in Him.
We do have a responsibility to consent to this.

This call to repentance is not always nice-sounding but is still a work of Grace. This is what we see in the book of Revelation where it seemed the Lord Jesus was so tough on the “angels” of the churches. But God knows how best to drive a message in that we get its seriousness.

Now a lot of believers avoid reading the book of Revelation (because of its symbolic nature) but an understanding of it is very vital in this times we’re in plus there’s a blessing on its readers.

Among the message John was instructed to record were things pertinent to the time.

And so the messages to the churches were real issues to real local churches (with a spiritual instruction to us as well - “He that hath an ear”)
I said that to prove this:
To show that salvation really is a process beginning at the moment we believe & prefected at His coming:

The promise to those who overcome have an implication in which believers already possess them (Faith);
For instance we are already seated with Christ, have eaten the hidden manna (Christ), and are God’s temple building...(Eph 2:6, John 6:51, Eph 2:21 respectively).

Nevertheless believers are enjoined to continue in the faith, steadfast & unmoved from the hope of the gospel. Because in reality it is possible for people who began well to willfully turn from this hope, preferring the attraction of sin, and being entangled in it.

So:
“For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” - Gal 5:5

“But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.” - Gal 2:17

Grace doesn’t promote bad living .

There’s no reason for one to have the impression that immoral living is permissible under grace, or that having a desire to please & honour God in obedience is legalism.
The motive & power behind it, whether the Spirit or flesh determines what is done from liberty & what is law.

God know those who truly are His, we don’t. In the “wheat & tares” parable, exposing the unsaved in the fold would negatively affect some of the elect. Therefore until God reveals His people in the end, one can only be assured of their own salvation by holding firm to the end.

So then, beloved brethren don’t live as though your actions don’t matter, they do.
Forgiveness (𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘴 in Greek) means deliverance, liberty etc.
The same grace that wipes away our wrong, empowers us to live such a liberated life that is pleasing to God (aspire to this).

Live a Christ-centered life with such boldness & humility of the Spirit, being yielded to God.
Resist the devil and his operations (temptations too) and live victoriously.
In times of failure, don’t stay down or overcome by them, rather overcome by the finished work of Christ.

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