There are many arguments used to support the “fear” of loss of salvation for saved children of God, but one that is used the most, and sounds extremely convincing is, “You can forfeit your salvation BECAUSE God will not force you to continue in Him and you can CHOOSE to walk away.” They say, “The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He will not force you to do anything, and God has given you free will.”
So is that the truth? Will God allow you, a born again child of God, to walk away? Will God give up on you? Will God leave you and forsake you? I mean how far will the Lord go in order to keep his saved children? How far will the Lord go in order to bring about your destiny? How far will the Lord go to bring about his plans and his purposes in your life? So is this idea that, “God will not force you to STAY saved or to CONTINUE to walk with him, true?” Well, let’s see what the Word has to say about this.
Genesis 32
24 So Jacob was left alone,
and God WRESTLED with him till daybreak.
25 When God saw that he could
not overpower him,
He TOUCHED the socket of Jacob’s hip
so that his hip was WRENCHED as he wrestled.
There are times in your life God will get you alone. Now I’m going to give you a personal testimony. I was arrested in 2005. I was a 10 year heroin addict. And I literally saw the work of God orchestrate my arrest. Now if someone says God will not arrest you, that’s a lie. If they say God will not force handcuffs on you, that’s a lie. Why would that be a lie? Because the bible says, “for we know that the authorities have been ordained by God (Romans 13:1). If you go around breaking the law, let’s see if God won’t use the authorities and the police officers to TACKLE YOU DOWN, to DRAG YOU AWAY, to put handcuffs on you, to force your head into the cop car, and finally to FORCE YOU INTO YOUR JAIL CELL.
See it’s really easy to say these kind of ideas and they kind of make sense at first but I submit to you today that God is all powerful and he’s more powerful than you. The question you have to ask yourself is, “am I bigger than God or is god bigger than me.” And if the former is true, then you’re not serving the Loving Father of the bible, who SAVES HIS CHILDREN. He, the Father, will use the authorities to put a STOP ON YOUR DISOBEDIENCE, if you need to be SEPARATED from the world and PROTECTED from yourself or Satan, as a born again child of God. The Lord knows exactly what it will take to SET YOU DOWN.
Notice in the scripture above it says, “Jacob was left alone.” I too was left alone in a jail cell when I gave my life to the Lord. But I was forced to shower, forced to eat, and forced to sit down. In fact, I’ll never forget the day I was arrested, literally the cop was ministering to me about Jesus in the cop car and he even pulled his bible up out of the car seat and said, “Listen son, this is the answer,” as he waved his bible in the air and preached to this 25 year old heroin addict that was in the backseat of his police car.
You see, God sat me down and got me alone. I read the Bible for the first time in my life when I went to jail, and the day I finished reading the New Testament, I was miraculously delivered out of jail THAT VERY DAY, THE DAY I FINISHED THE LAST PAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT!!! That day I got a new bunkmate, and he called his wife that night and his wife came in and literally bonded me out a $5000 bond, that night and I didn’t even know this lady. What’s my point? God is able to set you down. He is able to break you. He is able to move you. He is able to get you alone. He is able to do his work in your life and He is able to bring about that for which He has promised and destined for your life!!! He is able!
Many of you too were also left alone. Sometimes distractions have to go. Brokenness may require our wives to separate from us. Sometimes it requires we lose a job, or a friend, or anything that are an obstacle from what God wants to do you our lives. If anything stands in God’s way of our hearts, HE WILL WRESTLE WITH US, AND HE WILL REMOVE IT! He’s a Good God, and a Loving God and He IS ABLE TO SHAKE US. And if God wants to shake you loose from things He is able to do it!
Some of you might be saying,”but maybe He’s not.” Well, let it be according to your faith. God responds to faith. So, then maybe your god is not. Maybe you god is not big enough. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. Well if your god is not, then HE IS NOT THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. When we doubt God’s ability to save, we are doubting His Promises that are based on His Love. God has promised us eternal salvation, and it is Him who said He would finish His work in our lives (Philippians 1:6)!!!
Let’s go back to the text. It says, “God WRESTLED with him till daybreak.” In the Old Testament God appeared several times as man to Abraham, and to others. This is another example of a time when God appeared in the flesh. So, where are we going with this you might be asking. Well, I submit to you today that if you are a tough case GOD WILL WRESTLE WITH YOU, until you receive your blessing. Do not be afraid. It’s time we get rid of those Radioactive Fears of that threaten that we “might” go beyond the help and the hand of God!
Trust that God is able to do what he promised in your life and He is ABLE to save you. He is ABLE to bring about what he promised in your life, yes He is able! Even if you don’t think he is because you’re overwhelmed by your own sin and you don’t believe that you’re going to overcome and you keep sinning and sinning and sinning, I’m here to declare the Word of the Lord, “God is ABLE TO BREAK YOU, He’s ABLE TO SEPARATE YOU He’s ABLE TO CHANGE your people places and things.”
God is able because He’s good and because He loves His covenant children. If you have a covenant with Him. Believe me, if you are born again your spirit, you still need to be renewed daily in your mind. Salvation is a process, and the renewing of the mind doesn’t happen miraculously or instantly, but I guarantee you that what God has started in your life He’s going to finish it! I didn’t say it, the bible DOES (Phil 1:6)! Let’s go on, getting rid of those Radioactive Fears! Let’s go back to the text..
“So when God saw he could not overpower him…” If the Lord feels like He cannot overpower your stubborn will, or you still continuously disobey God, God will and can break your will. You might continue in your sin, not because of stubbornness, but because you’re overwhelmed by the sin in your body or you’re overwhelmed by Satan and you’ve not yet learned how to fight Satan. This is the case many times. But it’s at your lowest moment that Satan will unsuspectingly come and say, “Well you’re probably not saved.” And then they beat you up with condemnation and then you start thinking I’m not going to overcome I’m not even an overcomer.
Listen listen listen. Look what God did. He touched the socket of Jacob’s Jacob’s hip. So that his hip was wrenched! God will take the time to both WRESTLE WITH YOU, and to BREAK YOUR PRIDE. GOD IS ABLE to break you! HE’S ABLE to bring a new rock bottom in your life! HE’S ABLE to bring you to the end of yourself! HE IS ABLE to WRESTLE with you. He is ABLE TO STRIVE AND STRUGGLE with you. He is able as he did with Jacob, HE IS ABLE to get done and accomplished in your life what He promised! He is ABLE to make the changes in your heart that you need! HE IS ABLE to make you, and HE’S ABLE TO MOVE you. It’s time we take God out of the small box that religion has put Him into, and we start seeing Him as both LORD AND SAVIOR, ABLE to save you from you!!! Amen. Release those Radioactive Fears today, and experience the FREEDOM OF GOD! AMEN.
Genesis 32
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob,
but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Then he blessed him there.
Notice, how God did not bless him until He broke him. He did not bless him until He broke him, because he needed brokenness in his life. He needed to come to the end himself. God is ABLE to bring you to the end of yourself. He is ABLE to bless you. God is able to bring about the humility necessary to receive His Grace. For the bible says, “God gives Grace to the humble (James 4:6).” Are you convinced? If not, it’s ok, there’s more to come, let’s drive these Radioactive Fears out with Radioactive Faith!
John 15
“What do you think?
If a man owns a hundred sheep,
and one of them wanders away,
will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and
go to look for the one that wandered off?
If a man owns 100 sheep and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety nine on the hills and go look for the one that wandered of?? What do you think? So you might say, “Well when he gets there, this year, this particular sheep, you know… this hypothetical imaginary sheep, that continues in disobedience, Jesus is just going to let that one go.” I know those in fear would say this. Do you think He would just let you go? Do you think that He wasn’t ABLE TO GRAB that sheep, MOVE THAT SHEEP do what he needed to do in that sheep’s life?
Do you think that he wasn’t ABLE TO SAVE that sheep? Do you think he wasted his time going out to that sheep, and that HE WASN’T ABLE TO KEEP HIM? No!! That’s not what this verse says!! Jesus says, that HE WILL GO AFTER THE ONE WHO WANDERED OFF!!! He will go after you and He will go after me! Why? Because if He would do this for His sheep, HOW MUCH MORE FOR HIS KIDS, who have wandered off!!??
Don’t we know that in John 10:28 it says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” No one, NONE! You don’t think that Jesus was able to save that sheep? That’s not the Jesus WE SERVE. That’s not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus is ABLE to MOVE you, SHAKE you, EMPOWER you, CONVICT you, INSPIRE you, and MAKE you move and GO the direction that he needs you to go. He is able, and I submit to you today, THAT HE IS BIGGER THAN YOU. What did Paul find out in this matter?
2 Corinthians 12:7
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited,
I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Paul learned later not only was the Spirit able to knock him off of a horse (Acts 9), and with great flashes of lightning make him blind, but was also able to humble him! God was ABLE to humble Paul so that he might not be exalted above measure,so He put a thorn in his flesh! God will allow whatever is needed in our lives to keep us humble and dependent on Him! He was well ABLE to indirectly force him and move him and shake him and govern him in the right direction USING A THORN IN HIS FLESH. So I can hear the naysayers now, “Well, God will not force you.” God may not force you but he can INFLUENCE YOU SO SO STRONGLY that you might as well call it force! Yes, but He knows exactly what it’s going to take to humble you!!!
Acts 20:22
“And now,
compelled by the Spirit,
I am going to Jerusalem,
not knowing what will happen to me there.
In the scripture above it says the Spirit “compelled” Paul. That sounds nice and gentle, doesn’t it? But does that word really mean compelled in Greek? Let’s take a closer look at it. It means, “I bind, tie or fasten.” Now that’s much stronger than “compelled.” Therefore it literally means that the Spirit BOUND Paul. That means literally he was TIED to the will of God and he, Paul, was TIED to the Holy Spirit. He was being DRAGGED along by the Holy Spirit. This to me sounds EXTREMELY FORCEFUL. Right now I’m imagining a father putting on himself and his son or daughter a Safety Restraint Set that keeps them literally handcuffed by a string. That’s a nice imagination. But I have personally found myself in handcuffs, BOUND by the authorities! Only to find out there was a purpose!
God is ABLE to bind you. He’s able to tie you. He’s able to shut you up like Zechariah (Luke 1:18). He’s able to knock you off a horse like Paul. He’s able to blind you (Acts 9:9), and then use you to blind others (Acts 13:11) . He’s able to do whatever he needs to do in order to bring about his will for your life! It’s time we stop others from filling our minds with nonsensical Radioactive Fears! Satan wants to use people to convince us that God is small and that we are bigger than God, when we, HIS CHILDREN, are not! And HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR US! HE WILL HAVE HIS WAY! Amen.
Romans 7:24
What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
4506 rhýomai (from eryō, “draw to oneself”) – properly, draw (pull) to oneself;
to rescue (“snatch up“);
akin to eruó (to drag)
Who will rescue me from this body? For those who are children of God, GOD WILL! So let’s look at the word, “rescue.” What does it mean? It means to SNATCH up! So to the naysayers I ask this, “If your son went out in the road, in front of a moving car, are you not going to go run after him and SNATCH HIM UP?” Yes, God will SNATCH YOU UP!!! PRAISE HIM!!! That word “rescue” means “draw” but it’s also is akin to euro, and there is only a one letter difference, and this word means to “DRAG.” That’s right! God will drag you if He has to, to himself!!! He will snatch you up, and He will DRAG you kicking and screaming if He has to! This might be embarrassing for us, but HIS LOVE AND MERCY IS AMAZING! This happened to me many of times. Imagine someone drowning in the water. Well, Jesus our Rescuer will, even as we are fighting and wrestling with Him in our hysteria and fear, will DRAG YOU to safety because He’s GOOD and because He LOVES YOU and because HE’S BIGGER than you, and HE IS ABLE to drag and draw and pull you to the safety of HIS PRESENCE.
Ezekiel 36
And I will put my Spirit in you and
move you to follow my decrees
and be careful to keep my laws.
6213a. Asah, MEANS “MAKE YOU”
Now this word “move,” in the Hebrew means to “MAKE YOU.” There it is!! When God’s Spirit comes to live inside of you, and you are sealed with His Spirit, He will MAKE YOU keep his decrees!! Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t say it, THE BIBLE DID!. So do you still believe God won’t make you do anything? Do you still believe He won’t force us to do anything? Well if you are His child, and His Spirit lives on the inside of you, HE WILL! You little human being! He will activate His faith in you! He will inspire and cause you to do His will! Amen. This word also can mean to “cause,” “empower,” and give you initiative. In other words the INITIATIVE, the EMPOWERMENT, the INSPIRATION, the CONVICTION, the EXCITEMENT and the IMAGINATION is so empowering that it will transform our inner lives! It’s time to let God be God again, by REPLACING those Radioactive Fears, with Radioactive Faith.
Hebrews 7:25
He will also keep you firm to the end,
so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have to make a decision today, what to believe. We have to decide either Christ is able to keep us firm or he’s not! Either I am going to believe that I have to keep myself, or I am going to believe that HE PROMISED TO KEEP me, and He will! Either he’s able to keep you firm or you’re able to overcome him keeping you firm which is it going to be? Christ is bigger than me! I can’t even jump out of His hand He’ll come get me and chase me down and get me and move me, and shake me, and then wrestle with me, and then break me, and get me alone, and break me again. He is ABLE. Lift Him up! Glorify Him today! But the problem is, we’re lifting up self, as if self is bigger than Christ. And when you do that.
Philippians 1:6
being confident of this,
that he who began a good work in you WILL CARRY IT ON TO COMPLETION
until the day of Christ Jesus.
The question is, “Are we going to be more confident in the power of self, sin and Satan than in God?” Are we truly going to trust his ABILITY TO SAVE? Christ is able to save you even from you. This is the confidence we need to cast out Radioactive Fears! We CAN be CONFIDENT that, He who began a good work in us, WILL CARRY it on to COMPLETION. Either He is going to carry it on or we are going to TRY TO CARRY it on for him! Are we going to believe that we are able, or that HE IS ABLE? The choice is yours! Chose Christ today, and truly receive Him and His work, that only comes by Grace through Faith, LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST.
Hebrews 7:25
Therefore IS ABLE
to save COMPLETELY
those who come to God through him,
The devil wants to condemn us and wants you to think that your salvation is based on what you do rather than what Christ has done. Therefore, making you responsible for your own salvation. Believe me, if you could save yourself then, YOU WOULDN’T NEED A SAVIOR! He, the devil, wants you to put your trust in your ability and instead of Christ’s ability to save you. Amen. Where will your trust be? Will it be in Him who says He IS ABLE to save you COMPLETELY, or in the devil who uses Christians to tell you that God is not able to save you completely but only partially and initially, but it’s now up to you to keep it? The answer is clear! God is able, and HE WILL FINISH WHAT HE STARTED!! Say goodbye to those Radioactive Fears today, and rest in God’s PROMISES for FULL salvation, not just partial! Amen!!!
Romans 5:20
But where sin increased,
grace INCREASED all the more,
Grace will always increase ALL THE MORE, in the lives of the children of God! God is bigger than sin, and has defeated it 2,000 years ago on the cross of Calvary, by putting on the back of Jesus Christ our Lord and SAVIOR!! The GRACE we receive IS ALL THE MORE, and EVER INCREASING, above and beyond any issue or sin or attack we undergo! The God who promised us ETERNAL LIFE, is FAITHFUL and He will SURELY bring about what He has promised for his chosen ones (Luke 18:7)!!!
Amen!
and then