PERSEVERANCE

Someone described the 'unpardonable sin' as (paraphrasing): "You sin; the Holy Spirit prompts you with inner conviction and tells you, that was wrong. But you say NO, I dont need to ask for forgiveness -- what I did wasn't a sin. At that point you have blasphemed the Spirit, and you cannot be forgiven."

I won't try to debate the once-saved-always-saved question fully; however if you made a list of all the people in the Bible who knowingly resisted the commands of God directly, AFTER beginning a walk with the Lord... let's see, there's Adam, Noah, Moses, Aaron, David, Jonah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all his sons, Peter, Paul, John Mark, Barnabas... that's a pretty long list. All of them were restored by the grace of God. I am so glad I was restored after deliberately running away from God, only by his grace and mercy.

James said "we all make many mistakes." I gather that includes first-century apostles, prophets, bishops, and deacons, as well as you and I.

If I threw my 4-year-old son out on the street the first time he defied me and rebelled against me to my face, what kind of father would I be? And on the other hand, if I left him in my household and tolerated that rebellion, what kind of father would I be? In my house my son gets hugs and kisses and praise tens if not hundreds of times per day. He gets all of his needs met, and then some. And if he defies me, he gets a spanking. But after the spanking, the hugs and kisses and praise flow to him, with barely an interruption. The relationship is never in question, never in jeopardy.

In Jesus Christ we have a love that will not let us go: Faithful, unrelenting, passionate, pursuing love. If that love did not choose to pursue us, not a one of us would ever be saved. Ever.