6 Lies Satan Tells Us about Losing Our Salvation
Pastors
Audio By Carbonatix
6:00 AM on Monday, September 29
By Clarence L. Haynes Jr., Pastors
1. If You Sin, God Will Stop Loving You
If there is one lie Satan loves trying to convince you of is that God does not love you anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is one thing the Bible tells us about God's love.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8
Let's try to understand this verse a little better. Think about this. God loved you when you were a sinner at your absolute worst. He showed you this love by sending Christ to die for you. You put your trust in Christ for salvation. After you get saved you sin and because of this, God says I am going to stop loving you now.
Does that make any sense at all? The answer is clearly no. Can you imagine God saying, I will love you when you are a sinner before you get saved, but after you get saved, if you sin, I am going to stop loving you? That is a lie straight from the pit of hell, and that is where it needs to return. God will never stop loving you. Period. His love for you is unchanging, unwavering, and unending. God chose to love you when you were a sinner, and he will not stop loving you now. This is not meant to give you a license to sin but to remind you that if you sin, God's love for you has not stopped.
2. God Has a Limited Amount of Forgiveness for You and You Have Used All Yours Up
Along with Satan trying to convince you God does not love you anymore is the lie to convince you that there is no more forgiveness for you. Please tell me where in Scripture God says once you commit too many sins, He will stop forgiving you. If he did that, then none of us would have any hope because all of us have sinned before we came to Christ and even after.
In Matthew 18, Peter asks Jesus how many times one should forgive their brother. Peter thought he was being generous by saying seven because, at that time, there was a teaching that basically said three strikes and you are out. Jesus destroyed Peter's idea by saying not seven times, but seventy times seven. What he was saying is you should never run out of forgiveness for your brother who sins against you. For Jesus to say this meant Jesus lived it. That's why a reservoir of forgiveness is always available for you when you come to Jesus in repentance.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)
The last time I checked, the sun came up this morning, so there is forgiveness available for you if you need it.
3. If You Doubt Your Salvation, You Are Not Really Saved
Sad to say, sometimes as Christians we don't allow room for doubt. By this I mean if someone asks questions or becomes unsure of something, our first response is often to throw stones and question their faith. This plays right into Satan's hands. It is not uncommon or even unusual to have questions or doubts. This does not mean you have lost your faith or your salvation. Let me prove this to you from scripture.
Jesus told the world that there was no greater man born of a woman than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). He was the forerunner of Jesus. He was filled with the Spirit while in his mother's womb. He is the one who baptized Jesus and declared to the world that he was the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. However, later in John's life, he found himself in a prison cell. During this time, John asked an astounding question. Before you read this question, just remember all John did and who John was. Here is the question.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" - Matthew 11:2-3
Wasn't this the same John who had declared Jesus the lamb of God and who had said he must increase and I must decrease? Yes, it was. Yet, here we see that even John had moments of doubt. What we discover about Jesus' love in this section of Scripture is that Jesus didn't rebuke John; he reassured him.
Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me." - Matthew 11:4-6
If you have moments of doubt in your walk, that does not mean you have lost your salvation. It simply means you have doubts or questions you need to work through. Trust me, Jesus is okay with that and don't allow anyone else, especially Satan, to tell you otherwise.
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4. You Have to Earn Your Way Back Into God's Favor if You Sin
Another lie Satan likes to use is to get you to believe that if you have sinned, then you have to earn your way back into God's favor. Your sin caused you to lose God's favor, now you need to get it back. You must do something to get him to love you again. Not only is this a lie, it is impossible. There is nothing you can ever do to win God's favor or make him love you more. Yet, if you fall into this trap, it will cause you to move into works-based salvation, and works-based doesn't work. You have been saved by God's grace, and everything that happens after that happens by his grace as well. If you couldn't earn your salvation to begin with, what makes you think you can re-earn it? The simple answer is you can't, so stop trying to.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. - Ephesians 2:8-9
5. Your Salvation Depends on Your Ability to Be Perfect
If your salvation depended on your ability to be perfect, then none of us would be saved. Not Paul, not Peter, not any other hero of the faith. We would all be lost. God does not expect us to be perfect, but he expects us to be holy. These things may often be confused but they are not the same thing. To be perfect is to live without fault and without ever sinning again. Try as we may to avoid sin, there will be times when we fall short. To be holy means we have been set apart for God's use. This is something we can do. If you should fall short of God's standard, then don't allow Satan to make you believe you are not good enough because you don't do everything right. Your salvation is not based on your perfection but on Jesus' perfection. He did for you what you could not do for yourself. So, if the devil comes at you with this, simply remind him that you are not perfect, but Jesus is, and your salvation is based on that.
6. You Are Responsible for Delivering Your Own Salvation
The last area I want to tackle is the idea that you are responsible for your own salvation. While there are things you do to maintain your relationship with Jesus, let's be careful in confusing that with being able to deliver your own salvation. If we had to keep ourselves, then good luck in making that happen. You should rejoice today because there is one in heaven who keeps you. Best of all, he has promised to do so. As you consider your salvation, I want you to bank your eternal hope on the words of Jesus and his ability to keep you. As I close this article, these are the words I want you to remember because this is what you can hope in and trust in for all eternity.
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. - John 10:27-28
My friend, you are not the source of your eternal life or your salvation. Jesus is. You can be confident to know that if he has given you eternal life, he will keep you until the day you walk into that eternal life. Don't allow Satan to cause you to look at yourself as the source of this. Always look to Jesus because he is the one who will deliver the eternal life he has promised you.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. - Jude 1:23-24
