The Hand of God

I have blogged about the security of the believer before, but the other night I had something pointed out to me that finally brought into focus something that I had heard several years ago. Many, many moons ago, I had someone tell me that he knew that once a person was saved, then they were always saved because, once you believe, then you are in God’s hand, and how can you take something out of God’s hand? I challenged him to show me Scripture to that effect, and he couldn’t, so I basically ignored his statement as best I could (it’s kind of been floating around in the back of my head, though, wondering where did that come from?). The other night, though, somebody pointed out to me that in John 10:29, Jesus is talking about Christians as being sheep, and He says that no man is able to pluck them out of His Father’s hand. Son of a gun! There really is Scripture to support that idea (sort of). Here’s the thing, though: yes, Jesus did say that no one can steal one of His sheep from Him; He didn’t say that we, as sheep, aren’t free to wander off. The parable of the lost sheep doesn’t make too much sense if we couldn’t, does it?
In my earlier post, I mentioned Romans 8:35-39, which gives a long list of things that cannot separate us from the love of God, but I also mentioned Isaiah 59:2: "...your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you..." It comes down to the same thing: No one else can come between us and God, but we are free moral agents. Every day we make choices that can either bring us closer to God, or take us farther away. How far can one get from God and still be saved? I don’t know; I’m not sure I want to find out.
In First Peter 3:16, Peter tells us that there will always be some that will wrestle against the Scriptures to their own destruction. Some people will study the Scriptures to see how much they can get away with, while others study to try to get closer to God. If your whole purpose in reading the Bible is to find excuses to not do what God wanted you to do (or called you to do), then that makes it very easy for God to find excuse to keep you from where you would want to spend eternity. Galatians 6:7 says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” God knows what you are up to; don’t think that you are going to fool Him. It just doesn’t happen.