Q: If a Christian cannot lose their salvation then why if we are saved does the devil continue to attack us? Why does Satan want us to fall away from God?
A: The devil will continue to attack a Christian because if he can't have you he will do all in his power to ruin your life as a Christian. The Bible describes the devil as a thief and that the "thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10)." He would enjoy nothing more than to steal your joy, kill your hope and destroy your faith. One of the primary ways he does this is by getting us to believe error about our faith in Jesus Christ. Some of the error he tries to get us to believe are things like we can lose our salvation, that we must maintain or sustain our right standing before God, that our sins separate us from God or to believe that worldly gain is promised by God or is a sign of His love for us.
Unfortunately, many Christians believe that we can lose our salvation. In my opinion it is because those Christians do not know what salvation is. In other words, they do not know the Gospel. Often times their understanding of the Gospel sounds something like, "Jesus died for my sins." While that is not wrong it is definitely incomplete. The forgiveness of sins is not salvation, but a means to salvation. Nobody is saved by Jesus' death on the cross. "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand ... that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1, 3-4)." The key part often left out or misunderstood is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was God's offer of His life as a free gift to all who believe in order to restore the life we all lost when Adam sinned. We are spiritually resurrected from the dead by the life of God. It is because of the cross that there is no sin to cause that life to leave a believer. The devil tries to get us to believe that when we sin we lose that life we have. Nothing could be further from the truth. You cannot lose eternal life because there is no sin that can cause that life to leave.
If we aren't deceived into believing we can lose our salvation, the next trick of the devil is to get us believing that the goal of the Christian life is to stop sinning. This is were religion comes in. Religion can best be defined as any attempt to maintain or sustain our right standing before God through our attempted obedience at laws or rules designed to modify our behavior. And any Christian denomination can be defined by the laws it imposes on its congregation. Basically, it is trying to live a life you can never live. In order to live a life dedicated to sinlessness you must define good and evil and then try to live in accordance to those rules. Then you must institute rewards and penalties based on your obedience or lack thereof. However, the Bible says, "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:14)." When you live a life focused on trying to stop sinning, you must put yourself under law. Therefore, sin is your master! No Christian will say sin is their master, but if you believe you have to eradicate sin entirely from your life, you are mastered by it.
The motivation behind trying to live a life focused on sin is that you have to believe that your sins separate you from God. And the devil likes nothing more than to have you believing that God doesn't accept you or love you because of your failure to stop sinning. How many Christians have invented ways they believe will get God to continue to forgive their sins? We have confession booths, repeat the Lord's Prayer, keep short accounts with God, answer endless altar calls to "rededicate" ourselves to God and so on. Again, we must turn to the Bible for the truth. "Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:17-18)." If God no longer remembers our sins and there are no more sacrifices for sin, what does that say about our attempts to get more forgiveness? It says that our sacrifices are no longer required or accepted by God as payment for sin. Only the shedding of blood will grant forgiveness and we don't have a life to give that would satisfy God as payment for our sins. That is why the sacrifice of Jesus was once for all and for eternity. God doesn't remember our sins because He remembers the death of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
The Bible calls the devil the god of this world. And when we believe that God has promised us worldly gain as a sign of His love and acceptance of us we are actually worshiping the wrong God. "I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High (Isaiah 14:14)." One of the devil's main objectives is to be like God. And as the god of this world he wants nothing more than to have subjects who pay homage to him whether intentionally or unintentionally through the pursuit of what he offers. And Christians can do this by our constant attempts to acquire the comforts of this world. The false gospel of health and wellness with its focus on material wealth and personal success has deceived many well meaning Christians. I don't mean to imply that God wants us to be miserable, unhealthy failures, but that He wants us to focus on what we have inherited from Him through faith in Jesus Christ. If we allow the devil to make us believe we don't have everything we need for life and godliness from God we have no alternative than to seek it from the world. And all the world has to offer can only be received through some form of sin.
"You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4)." The things I have mentioned are just a few of the ways the devil tries to attack us. The devil tries to attack our minds because if he can control our thinking, our bodies and our actions will follow. That is why we have to continually renew our minds on the truth of who we are and what we have in Christ. If you fall away from grace it means you have to fall to something. And that something is our own self-effort of trying to get from God through our works what we already have been given through our faith in Christ. We cannot and never have been able to justify ourselves before God. It is a gift from Him that can only be received or rejected. "When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44)." The devil is the father of lies and he demonstrates his lies by trying to get us to believe his error and deceit instead of God's truth. We have to resist the devil so as not to lose the joy of our salvation and so our salt will not lose its saltiness. If the truth sets you free then error will put you in bondage. I encourage you to put "on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes (Ephesians 6:11)." Be blessed.
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