Once you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, your eternity is sealed and he has prepared a place for you in heaven. Of this you can be sure.
Unfortunately, even God’s own children can rob themselves of the peace and joy he desires to give them. Even the children of God can be given over to their sin and left to deal with the consequences.
The Old Testament as a whole is a great picture of what the Christian life can look like. God’s chosen people were so up and down in their walk with God! They would lean on him…he would walk alongside them…they would get comfortable and complacent…God would be pushed aside for the new “idol of the day”…suddenly life would fall apart and they would cry out to God in repentance…and every time he would forgive him! (This was repeated multiple times, and I’m personally familiar with that cycle.)
It’s obvious when you look at the whole story that they were much better off, much safer, experienced more peace and joy, when they were walking with God.
It is the same way with Christians today. Each of us sins! And God hasn’t assigned a grading curve to indicate that one sin is worse than another. Sin is sin! And when we humbly come before him, confessing our sin and turning away from it – he will forgive us, removing the power of that sin.
Unfortunately, in some cases, we allow a particular sin (or sins) to become a way of life for us. Initially we feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit within our Spirit, and we know that we should repent. But we like the sin too much. We don’t want to give it up. Not yet, anyway – maybe tomorrow.
The problem is, the more we ignore that feeling of conviction, the harder our hearts will become and pretty soon the Lord will stop bugging us about it and let us have our sin. He won’t stop loving us!!! He won’t stop waiting for us to return!!! We will not lose our salvation!!! But we will end up on an island named [insert sin here] and the weather may get pretty tumultuous.
When faced with the consequences of our sin, we will cry out to God – “Why??” And with a sad heart, he will gently respond: “Child, I tried to warn you. Now take my hand and I will walk you through this.”
Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. (Psalms 19:13a NLT)
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalms 51:10 KJV)
…“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. (v. 20)
…“ for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began. (v. 24) Luke 15 NLT
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. (Romans 8:1, 2 NLT)