Article #7 - Prevenient Grace Series

Now, folks love to walk up to Nazarenes and say, “I hear you belong to that church that believes you can lose your salvation.” And, on the one hand, I suppose they are right. But let’s be clear on this…you don’t lose your salvation like you lose your car keys. You don’t wake up some morning and wonder “where is my salvation today?” As Nazarenes, we don’t live in fear of “losing our salvation” the way that some think that we do. In fact, I believe that it is difficult to “lose our salvation.” “Why is it difficult?” you ask. Because God’s grace continues to work in our lives, and He doesn’t will that we should fall away.

Rather, I think that instead of saying that “we believe you can lose your salvation,” it would be better put that “we believe you can walk away from your salvation.” When we understand the entire salvation process as “responding to God’s grace,” we recognize that salvation is all about relationship. Indeed, if God is primarily understood as a relational God—Holy Trinity existing in perfect relationship and holy community before the beginning of time—then we are created to be in relationship with Him. Salvation—responding to God’s grace—is about being in relationship. We don’t merely misplace a relationship…instead we either walk away from it abruptly, or drift away through neglect.

I believe that Paul speaks to this question of “falling from grace” in Second Timothy 2, where he writes:

11Here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him,

we will also live with him;

12if we endure,

we will also reign with him.

If we disown him,

he will also disown us;

13if we are faithless,

he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself.

In other words, God is faithful to us, even when we fall short of perfect faithfulness. And yet, at the same time, we have the ability to sever our relationship from God, either abruptly or through neglect, and to disown Him. This happens when one ceases to respond to God’s grace, or to be in relationship with Him. Only then do we fall from grace, and turn from Him. But even then is the ability to repent of sins and to return to God. Indeed, His grace abounds more and more.

To those who are tempted to lose sleep over the question of “losing my salvation” or “falling from grace,” I have this to say: Concentrate on living as close to God as you can. Respond to His grace at work in your life. Live in constant communion with Him. If we focus our energies on responding to God’s grace and being in relationship with Him, we have no fear of waking up one day having “misplaced our salvation.” Indeed, if you live in relationship with God for the rest of your life, then we can say with all certainty that you are “eternally secure.”

It is all about God’s grace. It is God’s grace which created you and gave you life. It is God’s grace which allowed you to be morally responsible. It is God’s grace which made you aware of sin in your life, and that you were not in right relationship with God. It is God’s grace that allowed you to hear His voice calling you. God’s grace has called you. To those who respond to that prevenient grace, that grace saves you, sanctifies you, sustains you, and will eventually glorify you as the Image of God is restored within you.