I keep running across “Christian blogs” that talk about “losing your salvation” over a “single sin”.  Shortly after becoming a new believer in the Lord I met a man who claimed that he hadn’t sinned in months.  He held to the idea that it was possible for a Christian to be perfectly free from sin and in a state of “Sinless perfection”.  Later he came to see that his belief in sinless perfection was wrong and that he had been deceived in believing it.

On another occasion I was singing at a church.  After I’d finished singing I was approached by a boy who was in torment over his struggle with pornography.  He described how he’d repent, throw out his magazines, but at times being tempted, he would later return to retrieve them.  His church taught that if he sinned he would lose his salvation and end up in hell.  He was very afraid that he would not have another chance to get to heaven because he had “lost his salvation” and thought Jesus would possibly walk away from him and not give him another chance to be born again, again.  Many times people who are taught “sinless perfection” believe that if a person sins they lose their salvation and therefore need to be “born again” over and over each time they fall.  (If these people are honest, as this boy was, they have to admit that they struggle with sin just like everyone else.)  How do you get to heaven then if one sin is all it takes to lose your salvation?  Their solution is to believe they can be born again more than once… something the bible never teaches.

I’ve found that those who believe in sinless perfection (and many times those who believe they can lose their salvation) are often failing in 3 main points:

• A denial that the Christian life involves a very intense struggle with sin.

The bible clearly teaches that as Christians we are engaged in a struggle with sin.

“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Hebrews 12:4)

Anyone who tries to spiritualize this struggle away as if it doesn’t exist is only fooling themselves.  The Christian life is an ongoing battle with the world, the flesh, and spiritual forces that seek to drive us into sin.  To think that we will never fall, get wounded, succumb to temptation and sin, is the worst sort of lie and deception.  It’s even worse when we teach others this lie because it brings people into a fantasy world where they will be doomed to always fall short of the “sinless perfection” we demand of them.  We should seek to live for Christ, but when we fall we should understand we have an advocate in Him- He is on our side!

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”  (1 John 2:1)

Jesus is not against us, He is for us- and to teach that we lose our salvation as we struggle with sin is the worst sort of lie.

• The failure to see just how bad we really are.

The Word of God says we’re utterly sinful. 

As it is written:
   ”There is no one righteous, not even one;
    there is no one who understands,
      no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
      they have together become worthless;
   there is no one who does good,
      not even one.”  (Romans 3:10-12)

Those who believe in sinless perfection need to see themselves as God sees them.  In and of ourselves we are utterly sinful and without hope.  Now that is the gospel truth.  The trouble is many people have never yet seen themselves that way.  They wouldn’t be boasting of being sinless if they had!  Your idea of what is “sinless”, and God’s idea of it, are two completely different things.  If you ever truly saw yourself in the light of God’s holiness you’d shrink away like a worm and never claim to be “sinless” again!  You have no idea how bad you really are until you see yourself compared to God’s own sinless perfection.  Repent of your boasting and pride- you are far from perfect and not even close to being sinless.

• The failure to see how good God is, and how complete the sacrifice of Jesus is.

Jesus gave His life for us “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8).  He did everything that needed to be done to wipe away your sin forever. 

“…by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Hebrews 10:14)

The goodness and love of God was clearly displayed to all when Jesus hung on the cross for us unworthy sinners- It doesn’t get any better than that!  God in His perfect holiness paid the price to bring wretched sinners like you and me back into relationship with Him.  He didn’t have to do that, but He did!  Do you see how good God is?  We had no way out of hell, no way back to Him, and He came and rescued us even though we are the guilty ones, even though we are the dirty ones, even though we deserve nothing good from Him- He gave us every good thing in Jesus!

Not only is God good to us in bringing us back to Himself, but the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was enough to satisfy His justice and righteousness.  The blood of Jesus never fails to satisfy God.  I could shout at the glory of it!  What you and I could never do, Jesus did… and did for us.  Put away your filthy rags of “righteousness” and your vain attempts at “holiness”- Jesus alone has satisfied God.  Do you want to be holy before God?  Come under the blood of Christ, hide yourself in Him, and quit boasting of your own works- He alone is your righteousness. 

“It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

Not only is Jesus enough, not only does His sacrifice satisfy God- His sacrifice never loses it’s power!  The blood of Christ is effectual forever for all those who come to God through Him.  His sacrifice is not something that needs to be repeated over and over again, neither does it require that we add something to it. 

“Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not His own.  Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”  (Hebrews 9:25-26)

We often make much of what we do, but who will make much of what Christ has done?

The gospel is not what you can do for God, it is what God has done for you through Jesus Christ.  How dare we boast in ourselves as if we hold salvation in our hands!  Jesus has shed His blood, and the Word of God tells us THAT IS ENOUGH.  It is finished!  Christ has won the victory.  Don’t you dare try to say that you play a part in what Christ alone has accomplished!

Christ- my righteousness

There is sinless perfection for the Christian- He is called “Jesus”.  Hidden in Him I am perfect, He alone is my righteousness- there is no other.

“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”  (Galatians 2:21)

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

It would be great if every church had a big sign in front of their church building saying, “Church can’t save you!  You must be born again!”

If you want to get to heaven you must be “born again”.  (see John 3:3-5)

I’m probably not going to be able to say this any better than other times I’ve tried, but when is the church going to wake up and start taking this truth seriously?

One of the greatest tragedies on planet earth is that God showed us how to get to heaven, and instead of clearing the debris so people can find the way, we let the path be littered with human traditions of “church” that will do us no good when we die!

For most of my formative years I never knew that I “must be born again” to get to heaven.  Jesus made it as plain as day, and even though I went to various churches and was seeking for “spiritual things” I missed that message.  I missed the most important truth that any human being needs to hear!  You know what I do remember from my youth and my time spent “going to church”?  A sermon where the pastor used a hot dog to illustrate his message.  (Actually, I don’t remember the sermon, I just remember the pastor going up front with a ketchup bottle and a hot dog.)  Now that will really help prepare me for eternity!  I also remember sitting in the car at various times hearing something on the radio about God.  I was seeking so I’d sometimes tune in and listen, but it always seemed so “fake” to me, like they were trying to make God look cool, and it was a big turn off.  I figured if God was truly “GOD” He had to be about more than what we would think of as “cool”- I mean this is God we’re talking about here!

You know what else I remember from my time in church when I was young?  Sitting in church sometimes and being so bored I wanted to scream!  Yes, literally scream.  I never did, but I certainly felt like I could at any minute.  “Why does any of this matter?  Why am I sitting in this place?”, was pretty much what it boiled down to.  I felt closer to God going outside and taking a walk than I did in that building!  Creation at least seemed alive! 

Now the tragedy is that “going to church”, and being around God’s people, should have been the perfect place for me to experience the living God.  It should have been the one place where I’d be told, “You must be born again to get to heaven.”  Maybe I was told that, but I sure don’t remember it.  I was there enough times that I should have remembered something of that sort!  When I was really, really young I remember having to go to the Catholic church.  I remember the robes, the statues, the candles, the priest’s voice echoing so much I couldn’t understand it- and I remember how I hated kneeling all the time on those kneeling boards.  I also remember the prayer beads and rote “chanting” over and over the same things.  I don’t remember being told that I must personally be born again to get to heaven!  I can remember a lot of religious stuff from my youth, but what did this stuff have to do with Jesus?

You know where I finally found Jesus?  In my bedroom.  It happened after my brother had a conversation with me about the psychic stuff I was involved in and my brother told me I needed Jesus and not astrology.  I began to seek the truth after that conversation.  You know where else I first began to become aware of my need for Jesus?  On a car ride home from Nashville as I listened to a man I’d just met while performing for a TV show there.  He needed a ride home.  I gave him a ride, and as we went down the highway he asked me if I “knew Jesus”.  I thought I did, and I told the guy I did… of course, I now know that that I didn’t know Him at all.  I knew religion, I knew stuff I’d been told and seen in church, saw on TV or heard on the radio- but I didn’t really know Jesus; I wasn’t actually “born again”.  I believed I was “a Christian” just like most people you ask in America will say they are “Christian” if you ask them.  I never knew that to be a real Christian you had to be “born again”.  If I would have died that night driving home from Nashville I never would have made it to heaven.  You can’t get there without being “born again”, and I wasn’t.

That’s why I press this issue so hard.  I can’t understand why the church doesn’t go on a huge campaign to let people know the truth!  Shouldn’t this be job #1 for the church?  Churches should be the first ones tearing down the walls of misunderstanding and helping people to know that “going to church” isn’t enough, that being “religious” won’t get people to heaven.  They should be clearing up this mess!  When you’ve got most of America believing they’re “Christian” simply because they “go to church” or “believe in Jesus” in some vague way like I once did, there’s a real problem.  I was lost and headed for hell, don’t you think it might have been important for me to know that fact?  Isn’t it unconscionable to let people slip into hell without warning them?  We’ll collect their tithes and give them religious services, make them members and tell them all is well with their souls- but we fail to mention the single most important thing that they need to hear to get to heaven and spend eternity with God?  “All is NOT well with your soul… You must be born again!”  Why didn’t somebody tell me that in the years I went to church?  When are we going to seriously address ONE OF THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES that looms over the church?  Are we are so worried about being “nice” that we fail to warn people about this subject?

I’ll finish this post as I started it-

It would be great if every church had a big sign out in front of their church building saying, “Church can’t save you!  You must be born again!”

1. Every church should be frequently reminding people that without being “born again” there is no hope of heaven.
2. Without a “saving faith” in Jesus Christ that results in being “born from above” there is no entrance into heaven.
3. Without being “Born of the Spirit of God” there is no eternal home in heaven waiting for you.
4. Religion cannot save you.
5. You must be born again!  (see John 3:3-5)

Eternal life is only found in Jesus Christ- You must be born again to get to heaven!

I spent most of my years growing up never knowing the truth about Jesus Christ and my need to be “born again”.  I don’t want you to be able to say on the day you die, “Mike never told me this!  How come I went to his website over and over again, and he never told me this one simple thing I needed to hear the most?”  Well, I’m telling you: You must be “born again” to go to heaven.  You must be born of God’s Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ otherwise you will never get to heaven- He is the only way.

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”  (Acts 4:12)

The following links are here to help you to learn more about being “born again” and how to get to heaven:

If you want to learn more about being ‘Born Again”:

Heaven, hell, and eternal life in Jesus

More posts on this topic:

I can’t believe I’m born again!

Jesus is not religious

The “unsaved church”: Do we care at all?

Today is the day of salvation: share Jesus before it’s too late!

Gaining the world, but losing your soul?

You are the One!

In “Whatever Happened To Jesus?” I give a call to return to the “old paths” of faith in Christ as well as a call to return to our “first love” of Him.  I wrote the song early on in my Christian walk (about 3 years after being born again) and  noticed at that time that the church-at-large seemed to be embracing the surrounding culture rather than rejecting it.  As a brand new believer I couldn’t understand this since Jesus had just delivered me from “the world” and it’s influences- why would I want to return to the life I’d just left behind?  The amazing thing is that some in the church believe that the way to revitalization is by embracing the surrounding culture!  “If we are to be relevant to the surrounding world we must be like them”, they would say.  Being culturally relevant is seen as a way out of our lifelessness- and so we see a church today that in many ways now looks exactly like the world it was supposed to come out of.

Dead lifeless churches are obviously not God’s desire, but neither is a worldly, culturally driven church the will of God for His people- we need a return of authentic life in Christ.  An authentic walk with God does not need worldly hype and fads to produce life.  Instead of having more of the world in the church, we need more of the life of Jesus in us!  I believe we need to get back to the “old paths”- repent, return to Jesus, and get back to Jesus and the Word of God as our supreme source for life and truth.

Whatever happened to Jesus?  Isn’t this supposed to be about JESUS?

I’m as tired of dead, formal religion, as anyone else is because it keeps people from Christ rather than leading them into an experience of Him-  Jesus is alive, and if we’re not experiencing that, there’s something radically wrong.  But how did we go from wanting the church to be “alive” to somehow thinking that the way to this “life” is by embracing the world?  One of the most disturbing trends is how God’s Word is now thought of as antiquated- this belief is bringing about apostasy in the church.  

Apostasy is basically a falling away from God’s Word and departure from His truth, which leads to a falling away from Jesus.  When God’s Word is downplayed, denied, twisted, referred to as antiquated, and relegated to a place where the church prefers the words of men over the Word of God, we have full blown apostasy.  The Word of God should be the litmus test for our belief and practice, but it is increasingly being tossed aside as outdated and irrelevant.  One of the most insidious departures from God’s Word is when  biblical terminology  is thrown out and replaced by new language that often has a radically different meaning than the original- this deconstructing and reconstructing of God’s Word has again been done in the name of being “relevant”.  The whole notion that we need to change to reach the times and culture we find ourselves living in is spurious- We are the ones who have eternity in Christ; it is not we who need to become like the surrounding culture in order to change it, rather we are to “shine like stars in the universe” as we “hold out the word of life” to a “crooked and depraved generation”.

This world- it’s lusts and it’s culture- are ALL passing away, “but the man who does the will of God abides FOREVER”.  The Emergent Church (as well as those who hold to it’s obsession of being culturally relevant) are missing this important truth:

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him… everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me.”  (John 6:43-45)

It is NOT our identification with culture that wins people to Christ, rather, it is the work of our Father who draws people to Christ.  Our obsession needs to be with our Father and with His Son, not with the latest cultural fad.  The Spirit of God points to JESUS, not to this world’s culture.

Where can I find authentic life in Christ?

Some have seen the downward slide in the church and have decided they will leave it completely.  They believe they are to “come out and depart“ from the church and leave it all behind. But is this God’s answer?  Does He want you sitting home alone, no longer gathering with other Christians?  I don’t think sitting at home alone is the answer- God may call you out of a specific church for various reasons, but do you really believe His intent for you is to spend the rest of your time here on planet earth alone and cut off from gathering with other Christians?

The fact is, we are told that in the last days there will be a great apostasy, and we are seeing it.  There is no quick fix of church structure or form that will solve the problem and sitting home alone disconnected from other Christians is no solution either- we must hold fast to Jesus and His Word and stay connected with other Christians.

There are some who believe they can lose their salvation and talk as if their hope of heaven is hanging by a thread that can at any moment be broken by something they do.  They speak as if salvation is their work; if not to obtain it, to keep it.  I have always wondered how a person could truly know themselves and believe that their salvation was dependant on something they could do.  My 26 years of being a Christian have proved, if nothing else, that I am a “wretched man” as the scriptures would say; there is no good thing in me that would warrant heaven.  If for a moment Christ would take His hand from me, I would spiral to the depths of hell; that is not mere rhetoric, I believe that to the core.  If it were not for Christ I would never make it to heaven; I would not even have a prayer of entering that place apart from Him.

It has always amazed me, likewise, how low a view some have of Christ’s saving power.  Most will admit that they needed Christ to save them, but many have trouble believing that Christ will also keep them:

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”  (John 10:28)

More amazingly still, many seem to put more stock in their own works to keep their salvation than they do in Christ!  If Christ cannot keep you “blameless to the end” do you really believe you can?  How is that that Christ chose to save you, but is not able to keep you?  Was He not aware of what you are when He called you to be His own?  Was He taken by surprise to later discover things about you that He was unaware of when He saved you?  Christ knows the totality of who you are, yet, “…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

But let’s not stop there:

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!  For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”  (Romans 5:9-11)

I happen to believe His sacrifice is effectual and complete; Christ is my righteousness, I have none of my own.  He paid the whole price and bore the complete penalty for my sin- past, present and future.  (1 Corinthians 1:30, Hebrews 9:26, 10:12-13)

If Christ cannot keep you, how in the world do you think you can ever keep yourself?

Is He all your righteousness, every bit?  Then you have everything you need in Christ!

I wrote “Today’s Lyrics” in 1991, six years after being born again; I had come utterly to the end of myself.  I realized that night that I had a choice; it would either be Christ and… or Christ alone.  If it was Christ and… my works, my efforts, my righteousness etc, then I had no hope of ever getting to heaven, not even a prayer; if it depended on me at all, I would mess it up.  I saw that night what I’d seen when I first got saved… It is ALL of Christ, it is none of me; Christ is EVERYTHING.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, who are you putting your trust in when it comes to eternal life, being saved, and making it to heaven?  I pray it is not yourself!

Here’s are the lyrics I wrote that night:

Read Galatians 2:21

How precious is the blood He shed!
The only means of righteousness!
So all the praise should go to Him,
It’s nothing that I’ve done…

No works of mine deserve applause
Or make me pleasing to my God,
The Spirit points me to the cross
And to the Savior’s blood

For there the plan of God fulfilled
Ran down Calvary’s darkened hill,
His light had come into the world
His blood had touched it’s soil

His hands, His feet, His wounded side
All are there to testify-
There is no room for human pride

And shall I turn and just pretend
That I can somehow add to them?
Can one commit a greater sin
Than that?