There are many concepts and beliefs that are held regarding salvation. We must never just accept something because it is commonly accepted or taught by religious teachers but see what the Scriptures say lest we be deceived.<\/p>\n
Let us examine the concept of “As long as I love Jesus, it doesn’t matter what I do in my life.” The young man who said this to me several years ago was attempting to justify sin in his life. As I have discussed religion with people in the 13 years since this statement was made, it has become clear that this doctrine is very popular in most religious groups. But what does the Bible teach? Can a person lie, curse, commit immoralities, or do anything he wants to do and still be righteous in God’s sight, providing he “loves” Jesus? Salvation would indeed be easy if it were true. We would not have to be concerned with commandments! Ah . . . I think we have found out why this concept is so prevalent. But is this a concept of wisdom that really leads to salvation?<\/p>\n
I find it hard to believe that any honest Bible student would accept any doctrine that says salvation has nothing to do with what we do in our life. “Are we not saved by the grace of God,” you ask? Certainly, see Ephesians 2:8. But I ask you, “May we sin so that the grace of God abounds on us?” Paul answers “No!” in Romans 6:1. If you examine the complete context of Ephesians 2 (and any passage which speaks of salvation), you learn that the means of our salvation is a gift from God, namely, the cross of Christ, but that it is conditioned upon and for the purpose of our walking in the good works that are of Christ and not in the works of disobedience (e.g. read all of Ephesians 2:1-10, not just verse 8).<\/p>\n
“But I love Jesus,” you say, “isn’t that all He wants?” What do you mean by love? “Love” has been redefined in the “Christianity” of today to simply mean you have some sort of subjective inward emotion that makes you feel “close” to God. Biblically, there is more to it. Think about it. If we say we love someone, but it is only a feeling, is it really love? Not as defined by I Corinthians 13. Jesus Himself said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments<\/em>” (John 14:15). If we really love Jesus, it does matter what we do in our lives.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Keven A. Sulc via\u00a0The Berean, Vol. 5, No. 6, August 1996 There are many concepts and beliefs that are held regarding salvation. We must never just accept something because it is commonly accepted or taught by religious teachers but see what the Scriptures say lest we be deceived. Let us examine the concept of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[65,47,179],"class_list":["post-55064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-love","tag-salvation","tag-sin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":59399,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/salvation-is-unlimited-but-conditional\/","url_meta":{"origin":55064,"position":0},"title":"Salvation is Unlimited — But Conditional","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Earl Robertson via \"The Instructor\", October 1982, Volume 19, Number 10 John wrote \"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely\" (Revelation 22:17). Many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83273,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/assurance-of-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":55064,"position":1},"title":"Assurance of Salvation","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 16, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton \"So, any Christian who keeps the faith never has to be worried about their salvation. Once Saved, Always Saved is not in the Bible. Assurance of salvation is. We can know that we have eternal life\" [from a comment received]. The key here is \"keeping the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39225,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/faith-only\/","url_meta":{"origin":55064,"position":2},"title":"Faith Only","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mark Russell published in\u00a0Biblical Insights, Vol. 5, No. 7, July 2005 Even Martin Luther didn't deny baptism as an expression of faith and as necessary to salvation. There were five Latin phrases, known as the \"Five Solas\" that became the mantra of the Protestant Reformation. These five ideas developed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/10\/luther.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":90814,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/reaching-the-lost\/","url_meta":{"origin":55064,"position":3},"title":"Reaching the Lost","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Dann Most people are lost. \"Few\" are headed in the right direction in contrast to the \"many\" who are bound for destruction (Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV). They are \"dead in trespasses and sins\" (Ephesians 2:1) and are \"alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89505,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/commandment-keeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":55064,"position":4},"title":"Commandment Keeping","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kevin Cauley There are those in the religious world today who ridicule the idea of keeping commandments. They claim that keeping God's commandments has nothing to do with our salvation today. If someone objects and says that we must keep God's commandments to be saved, the charge of legalism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46572,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/salvation-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":55064,"position":5},"title":"Salvation","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Text: Romans 2:1-11 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A classic comic skit is to have two people engaged in a conversation. He thinks he is talking about one topic. She thinks the conversation is about an entirely different matter. Yet, the statements said make perfectly good sense to both parties. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I realized I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}