It is not enough to merely accept the gift of salvation God has given you. Your salvation must be maintained, per se, through faithful living.
What does faithful living entail?
I – Faithful attendance to church services on the first day of each week.
While the rest of the church days are up for debate and left for individual decisions (Wednesday nights or Sunday nights), meeting with the saints at least once on the first day of the week is a basic requirement of Christianity. If there is one thing people of the world know about Christians, it is that they are “at church” on Sundays.
Attending services on the first day of the week is one of the ways we sacrifice to God. We are sacrificing the first fruits of our week to Him. Many of us would rather be somewhere else on Sunday mornings if we are being honest. It is the weekend capping a week of work, the day before a new work week starts. And many times we would rather just stay in bed than get up early and sit around other human beings.
But that is what is required of us. And over time, if we work at it, we can begin to shift our attitude away from the kind that does not look forward to the worship services.
Our goal should be to one day possess the mindset of the Psalmist who was glad when they said to him ‘let us go into the house of the Lord’.
“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”
Psalm 122:1
This same psalmist wanted to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life.
What a wonderful mindset to have, and it is one that takes time to develop. It is difficult to think this way about church service, especially if we are in the habit of viewing it as an inconvenience.
“One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.”
Psalm 27:4
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
Psalm 23:6
Nevertheless, the basic requirement of maintaining salvation is meeting with the saints each first day of the week. On this day we must also break the communion bread of the Lord’s supper, and set money aside for the work of the church, as the disciplines in the first century did.
“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.”
Acts 20:7
“Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.”
1 Corinthians 16:2
II – Continual Obedience
We have to continue to meet the commands of God. There are many requirements laid out in scripture that God requires of His people. There is a specific lifestyle that Christians are required to live. It is not glamorous, sexy, or exciting. This is because it is an investment for a future reward.
It is not glamorous or sexy to invest in your 401k or IRA, in fact, it costs you something today in the form of money. But your excitement grows over time as you begin to see increasing returns on your investment.
The Christian lifestyle requires that we sacrifice the pleasures of the world today. Christianity requires somewhat of a Spartan lifestyle of discipline and simplicity. This is incredibly difficult and is one of the reasons that many do not choose the Christian lifestyle.
There is an abundance of things to be enjoyed in this world, and God places restrictions on some of them.
I’ve argued in the past that sexual restriction is one of the prime reasons that young people leave the church, and why people resort to the militant religion of atheism. It can be difficult to understand why God places so many lifestyle restrictions on His people, and many give up on trying to understand and give up on God. They leave the church and join the world. Or they were always in the world and join the atheistic community.
But for the Christian, if salvation is to be maintained, it requires that the Christian lives his life according to the commands that God has laid out in His word. Christianity requires our obedience.
III – Continual Repentance
The righteous man falls seven times but rises again, the Bible teaches us. Faithful living involves rises after failure. This is the responsibility of every Christian. Once we accept God’s gift of salvation, this does not mean we stop sinning. On the contrary, we have now declared open war on the Adversary. Before we were baptized, we were a part of the world and on his side. Now we have declared allegiance to God and Satan counts us as his enemy (as he always did even when we were lost). This leads us to fight more battles against our sins and has more failures.
“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”
Proverbs 24:16
One of the difficult things about becoming a Christian is you become more and more aware of how much sin you are engaging in. The more we study God’s word, the more we find that we are violating the principles of godly living.
This should not discourage us because we have defined the enemy and we have defined the problem. And a problem defined is a problem half solved.
When we fight these battles against our flesh and against the Adversary, there will be countless failures. But if we get us, confess our sins to God, and get back in the fight, we have continual forgiveness.
Please note that this is not “once saved always saved”. That is a false doctrine based on these clear passages of Scripture:
“Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”
Galations 5:4
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
Hebrews 6:4-6
We cannot live however we want and maintain our salvation. We have to continue to repent and change our lifestyles across time to fully meet the requirements of God.
God knows we will fail often, which is why He built the system of continual cleansing through the blood of Christ. As long as we keep fighting and keep changing our behavior, we can win. As long as we maintain faithful living, we have forgiveness.
7 “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 1:7-9
These are the three core tenants of faithful living. While there are many more that could be discussed, these three cover the majority of necessary topics.
If you have not begun your journey as a Christian, I would encourage you to study with your local church of Christ and become a member today. And after that, maintain your salvation through the correct Christian lifestyle.
