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Archives for January 2019

Relying On Righteousness Keeps You Safe

Relying On Righteousness Keeps You Safe

January 26, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

Reading time: 4 minutes

Are you the kind of person that learns the hard way or the easy way? Do you rely on your own effort or God’s effort? God’s righteousness will keep you safe. Self-reliance won’t. Developing a relationship with God is to experience eternal life.

If we are to trust in God’s righteousness, does this mean we can sin all we want without consequence? I’ve encountered some people who believe such grace is cheap. They argue that the certainty of salvation removes the incentive to stop sinning. They believe it is possible to lose salvation. The fear of losing salvation becomes the incentive to keep people from perpetual sin. Rules and consequences keep a person honest, they say.

But there is a better way to live. To feel at peace, remove your reliance on these three roadblocks: resources, responsibility, and restlessness.

Rely on Righteousness over Resources

The need for fear in a relationship with God works against the need to trust God for the security of your life. Love is a far superior motivator than fear. Love produces trust. Fear produces doubt and distance.

The distance grows as people flee the demands of obedience. The fear breeds self-reliance. Then people want freedom on their own terms. They want God’s provision but not God. They quickly receive any gift but lack respect for the giver.

The need to have resources stockpiled with no strings attached is really avoiding the fear of trusting God for your salvation. But resources bring a false sense of security at best (Luke 12:13-21).

Being responsible for your own load is a mark of maturity. The young son in the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15) learned this lesson well when he was willing to work as a hired hand for his father. He understood he had taken advantage of his father and wanted to repay his father. Fortunately for him (and you and I), his father confirmed his unconditional love for the younger son. He allowed him back without demanding repayment.

Rely on Righteousness Over Responsibility

Relying on someone else to meet your needs can be a humbling experience. Some people panic when they have nothing to do but rest. They feel their life is pointless if they aren’t carrying their own weight. They require having a fear of failure hanging over their heads because it drives them forward. They need to earn their passage in life. They resist accepting any gift.

In Luke 15, the older son was responsible (“I’ve never disobeyed you”) but he lacked the humility to receive the father’s invitation. The older son wanted to continue to rely on self-effort. The younger son, when he left his father, wanted to rely on self-indulgence. When the resources ran out, he switched to self-effort (“Make me your hired hand”), but quickly accepted his father’s correction; he accepted the ring of sonship and the invitation to the feast.

Both the self-indulgent person and self-righteous person value control over the vulnerability of depending on God. Both are uncomfortable feeling needy. The irresponsible person tries to secure their freedom through any means necessary (often by being bad). The responsible person tries to earn their own way by being good.

Rely on Righteousness Over Restlessness

So long as you’re depending upon God’s righteousness, you can be sure of your salvation. Eternal security depends on the faith, trust, and hope you place in God. Those who worry about losing their salvation are stuck in a moment of time. They refuse to walk the path that increases their reliance on God. They can feel no hope because they are focused on fear rather than on God.

Years ago I went repelling for the first time. Somehow I intuitively understood that to descend to the bottom, I had to lean all the way out from the edge of the cliff. Without a rope and a secure anchor, this would result in a much faster (and deadly) descent. But trusting in the anchor and leaning all the way out made for a pleasant, peaceful descent.

The same is true for your life as a Christian. You must put all your trust in your connection to God to experience a peace that surpasses understanding.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 ESV

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Filed Under: Spiritual Formation, Eternal Security, God's Kingdom Tagged With: attitude, faith, fear, heart

Claim Full Assurance Of Hope

Claim Full Assurance Of Hope

January 21, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 3 Comments

Reading time: 4 minutes

You can know with certainty that you have eternal life. God desires that you earnestly claim full assurance of hope.

What does eternal life have in common with being pregnant? Just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you can’t possess a fraction of eternal life. They are both all-or-nothing. You are either alive or you are dead.

Many life disappointments can stir up insecurity and doubt. You might think, “Maybe I’m not saved. Maybe Jesus doesn’t care about me. Maybe I’m beyond God’s love. Yes, I’ve fallen away and my situation is hopeless.” But God provides so much for us believers so that we do not have to doubt our salvation.

The Holy Spirit Provides Full Assurance of Hope

God wants you to feel secure in His love. If your heart has impurities like anxiety, doubt, and fear, He will want to work out the impurities. As this happens, your faith and confidence will grow. Paul’s prayer in Ephesians should convince you that it’s okay to have a goal to become more confident in your faith.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19

Jesus Provides Full Assurance of Hope

Being confident in your faith requires humility as you trust God more. But being confident in yourself, in what you can do without God, is only pride. In this context, I present to you a difficult passage for many Bible readers.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Hebrews 6:4-6

Is this saying it’s possible to fall away from a believing faith with no return path possible? No. Here’s why.

Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians (read more about this). They were raised under the old way, the law. They converted to the new way, faith in Christ. However, they were tempted to return to their old, familiar ways. They doubted the simplicity of the Gospel. In a moment of weakness, in their insecurity, they considered turning back to the OT (or falling away from the NT).

In Hebrews 6, Paul reiterates that there is no turning back. The only way is the way forward by faith in Christ. Returning to Egypt is futile. “If you come this close to the truth, but reject it and choose to keep looking elsewhere, you won’t find another way.” Paul is emphasizing an all-or-nothing truth. You’re either all-in or all-out. There is no in-between.

Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life. If you find that one way, then you gain access to everything that comes with it. You have truth and eternal life.

You must choose which way you’ll tip. The purpose of such scriptures is exactly to sort out the issue. You must know whether you are saved or not. So which is it? State it loud. State it boldly. State it confidently.

God Provides Full Assurance of Hope

Any doubt or concern is proof you’re not one of the ones who fall away. The following verses apply to you (more on this):

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6:9-12

God bless you with, “full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish.” Have unhindered energy to pursue the things of God. Amen.

Read more about Eternal Security.
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Filed Under: Spiritual Formation, Eternal Security

An Eternal Life Is Never A Fragile Life

An Eternal Life Is Never A Fragile Life

January 13, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 3 minutes

What exactly is eternal life? If you’re thinking about your former life, before you knew Christ, you probably have the wrong idea. Even your current life as a believer, can’t compare because it has pain and suffering mixed into it.

Eternal life is far superior in both its quality and its quantity. Your former life and your present life can’t be the real-life Jesus talks about as He prays to the Father.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 17:3

This makes sense, doesn’t it? Only a few chapters earlier Jesus proclaimed He is life.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

Eternal life encompasses more than simply the quality of being unending in duration.

Eternal Life is Strong

Eternal life could also be called “strong life.” It’s not weak, frail, or sickly. When you receive eternal life it preserves you without fail. Jesus is faithful to finish the work He started in you and He lives forever, never ceasing to intercede on your behalf (Philippians 1:6, Hebrews 7:24-25).

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.

Jude 1:24 NLT

If you know Jesus, you abide with Him and are connected to Him forever. God’s strength keeps you safe.

A person cannot become strong without first becoming connected. If a person stays separated from Christ, the person remains weak and can’t accomplish anything worthwhile (2 Corinthians 12:10, John 15:5).

Eternal Life is Abundant

If you know Jesus, you have abundant life, not insufficient life. To know Jesus is to have eternal life: Life to the fullest. Eternal life is the fullest sense of life. You can live the high life. The worldly definition of high life is an extravagant or luxurious style of living. The life Jesus offers is something else entirely.

Jesus is inviting you into the spiritual high life. To possess the spiritual high life is to have spiritual eyes which enable you to see and know God’s spiritual realities. You can grow in knowing God’s goodness, experiencing the full height, depth, and breadth of best God has to offer.

Eternal Life is Nourishing

If you know Jesus, you have nourishing life, not junk-food life. You can begin to experience this spiritual nourishment today, but you can’t fully experience it until your time on earth has passed. In this context, we can say that knowing Jesus is having an ongoing relationship with Him. You don’t have to know Him completely, yet, to possess eternal life.

To begin receiving spiritual food, you only need access to God through the way: Jesus Christ. The entering into God’s eternal care is life itself.

When something is eternal, it transcends time. Therefore, you can describe the new life you possess now in past, present, and future terms. You have already secured it; You are in the process of receiving more of it; And, you will receive it totally when you leave your current physical body.

Eternal Life is Forever

If you know Jesus you have eternal life, not temporary life. Something that is temporary is brief, limited, makeshift, perishable, substitutionary, transient. It’s meant to be replaced. If anything in the Bible is meant to be temporary, it’s the old covenant (Hebrews 8:1-13). Something that is eternal is abiding, boundless, constant, enduring, everlasting. It never needs to be replaced. It never breaks down. It never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8-12).

What kind of life do you want? What kind of life do you have?

Read more about a believer’s assurance of eternal life.
Read more about the quality of eternal life.
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Filed Under: Eternal Security

Discipline Ensures Victory

Discipline Ensures Victory

January 6, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 3 Comments

Reading time: 3 minutes

Reflecting on your life experiences, do you feel more neglected, disciplined, or condemned?

Neglect results from a lack of loving concern. Condemnation results from a lack of loving redemption. Both abandon people into the hopelessness of a world filled with evil. Neglect is a passive condemnation. You might not immediately be aware of the danger you are in, unlike condemnation which is much more obvious. But discipline includes the best of both and discards the worst. It not only points the way out of destruction but also provides the means to get to safety.

Neglect and Condemnation Eliminate All Hope

To be condemned is to be hopelessly abandoned. Punishment doesn’t include redemption. Punishment destroys. There is no provision for any kind of desirable future.

The one who punishes is evil and selfish. The one being punished only becomes more afraid.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18 NIV

While you are being punished, you might not believe your situation is permanently hopeless, but in day-to-day living, you will likely feel overwhelmed with despair.

People who fail to develop faith in Jesus will face condemnation. They will finally reap what they have sowed. They won’t be able to escape God’s wrath.

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 25:46 NIV

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 NIV

Discipline Creates Confidence

The one who disciplines invests in a positive outcome. As God corrects you (not punish or condemn you), you will experience a curious mixture of sorrow and hope (Hebrews 12:11). The hand of correction stings for a time, but awareness of its gift soon follows.

God always guides those who are His children into righteous living. Such training requires an investment. As God corrects you, He accepts the responsibility to see you become something more and better. God is on your side. God will never abandon you.

You can have eternal security and endure strong discipline from God at the same time. In fact, you can’t have one without the other.

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

Hebrews 12:5-8 NIV

Isn’t being able to claim yourself to be a true son or daughter such a great reward? God’s discipline is for your eternal benefit, not eternal condemnation. When you can feel the difficulty of life weighing on you, you can simultaneously recognize God is working to help you become better. God’s correction leads to hope. God cares about your life; He wants you to swim not sink.

God won’t simultaneously condemn you to hell and invest in your future. Sensing God’s sincere effort to remodel your life is yet another way to validate your eternal security. You can confidently say, “I’m a child of God. God cares about me enough to correct me and keep me on the right path. He wants me to make it safely across the finish line and to be at home with Him forever” (Psalm 23).

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Filed Under: Eternal Security

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