Sounds like you may need to look for another church, of course at God's leading.

One thing I'd like to caution you about is your attitude while at church. It's very easy to lose focus on why we actually attend a worship service. Sure the instruction and teaching one receives from a pastor is vital to our walk in the faith. But ultimately it's about worship, taking one day out of the week to gather together as a body of believers and give praise, honor and glory to God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

At one time in my life I felt exactly like you. Then my family and I visited another church and that particular worship service opened my eyes to my own shortcoming in how my heart was prepared for worship......it wasn't. I focused on the style of music and how long and boring the songs were instead of actually paying attention to the words in the songs and pouring out praise and honor to my God through them. I found that once I prepared my heart for worship even before I left my house and entered the sanctuary, my worship experience was much different.

How did I prepare? I took the time to concentrate on God and God alone. I put aside everything that may have happened during the week, any frustrations of that morning or the night before, and took time to pray and have Jesus prepare me to be open to everything and anything He had for me that day. Once I "turn my eyes unto Jesus" the "world becomes strangely dim" and I have "joy unspeakable" no matter what song is sung in church.

I can't help wondering if there's any other part of church that you're struggling with. Are you growing, are you serving or do you just take up pew space? I know that may sound harsh but please take it in love. It's not meant to sound arrogant.

As far as finding another church to attend, that is definitely something you only want to do at God's prompting. He has a perfect will for your life and that includes the church you attend.

I hope this helps.

In Christ Alone,

Stephen

Thanks, Kevin. It's great to be here.

Now Ollie, if I may, I'd like to respectfully respond to your comments and scripture references.

First, you seemed to have answered your first question with your opening statement. Satan's deception of Eve was based on the fact that Eve percieved this "death" to be a physical death, when in fact God was referring to a spiritual death. And I'm sure that Satan knew this and twisted around the truth to meet his own needs. Jesus calls Satan a liar and the father of lies. Therefore it makes perfect sense that he would try to deceive us into believing that we could not fall from grace by going against God's Word.

But please notice that I said "fall from grace" and not "die." We can only fall from grace if we have experienced it in the first place. A non-believer cannot fall from grace because they haven't experienced it in the first place, they can only die. And by this I mean spiritually die, experiencing all of the terrible atrocities which the bible describes as going on in hell. Falling from grace is not a fall where our eternal future is so final. Because as believers we have accepted God's grace and experience it on a daily basis (hopefully), we have the opportunity to approach his throne of mercy and get right with him and start anew. Until a non-believer accepts this free gift of God's grace, their only alternative is death.

As to your first reference to the Galatian Christians, I point out your own realization that they were Christians, not non-believers, and therefore were fallen from grace because they had first experienced it and had allowed some tares among the wheat to convince them that to live by the law was more important than living according to the grace of Christ.

Instead of addressing the rest of your post, let me comment on what appears to be the overall issue. You seem to be confusing losing salvation with falling from grace. Or it's just a simple misunderstanding. Yes, we will come under some sort of righteous judgement as believers for sinning, no matter what that sin is. And there will also be a righteous judgement for non-believers either when they physically die or when Christ comes to rapture the church. But they will not be the same judgements. And I look at the judgements of God towards me (as a believer) to be disciplinary actions, to grow me and to form me more into the likeness of Christ. We have ALL already been judged and been found guilty of sin. Otherwise, as I stated in my first post, there would be no need for Christ. But because of Christ, and our acceptance of him, we will not suffer the wages of sin which is death........which would be the outcome if we lost our salvation.

I say all of these things in love, Bro. Ollie. I hope they will be received in like manner.

In Christ Alone,

Stephen

I'm a newcomer to the sight but not to my Lord. Let me first state that I've been saved for about 9 years and FIRMLY believe that once saved, always saved since Jesus "died once for all." It would seem to me that if we could lose our salvation, Jesus would have to die again. And I find nowhere in God's perfect, infallable Word that states Christ is going to die again.

Those of us that believe, understand that we are in a constant spiritual battle, a warfare between the powers of God and the powers of Satan. And Satan is continually trying to deceive us into believing that the promises of God are not true. When God ALLOWED Jesus to be taken into the desert to be tempted by the devil, the devil tried to use scripture against Jesus to get him to commit sin. Why should we not believe that Satan won't do the same with us?

Sometimes we make scripture or something that the Holy Spirit is trying to lead us through be far more complicated than it needs to be. But that's the nature of the beast as far as humans are concerned. We are so adept at taking something simple and making it quite complicated by adding our own thinking or theology into the mix. And that's when Satan starts smiling.

The greatest plan that God reveals to us in His Word is the plan of salvation which is made complete in Jesus Christ. He wanted (and still wants) us to be reconciled to himself so much that He gave Jesus up, and likewise Jesus loved us so much and wanted to please the Father so much that He obeyed Him completely in everything that He did. Our faith must consist of the belief that if God has this love for us (as He has told us He does) then He would definitely let us know if there was something that we would have to do in order to keep our salvation.

As far as our sin is concerned, we are all going to have it somewhere in our lives. Even if we are saved. If not, then we would be perfect, and therefore have no need of Christ. Now the bible says that we are made perfect in him (Jesus) because of his death, burial and resurrection. That perfection is not in our own bodies or actions, but the way that God now sees us once we have accepted the gift of God's grace through Jesus Christ. We are restored to a right relationship with him. And in order to maintain that right relationship, God expects us to come to him, as a child to a father, and be honest enough with him and ourselves to admit our sins so that He can "cleanse us of all unrighteousness." And we will need this cleaning as long as we are alive, even though we know that we are saved. But we don't lose the salvation because of our future sins. God already knows that we are going to sin, even after we are saved. What happens when we are saved is that the Holy Spirit comes into our lives and acts as a conscience of sorts to help us know when we have sinned and therefore come before a holy and gracious God to admit it to him and start anew.

As for the stumbling block thing from a few posts ago, this doesn't have anything to do with losing our salvation. What it does have to do with is causing someone to hinder their relationship with God because they see us, a Christian, doing something that is ungodly, and therefore somehow justify their own sin as being okay. An instance of this that comes to mind is after the Israelites had crossed through the Red Sea and Moses was gone for a long time upon the mountain talking to God and they became restless and frustrated and gathered all of their items made of gold and made a golden calf out of them and began to worship it. They then engaged in a lewd party of sorts of which Aaron, a priest who would later be one of those who led them into the promised land, actively took part. I wonder if Aaron had stood up for the things of God if this situation would have ever happened.

I've said alot and I hope this has helped any of you who are struggling with this issue. All I can say is trust Him, He will never lead you astray.