JULY 25, Ephesians 4:30 

Have you ever been in an airport and noticed the difference between passengers who hold confirmed tickets and those who are on standby? The ones with confirmed tickets read newspapers, chat with their friends or sleep. The ones on standby hang around the ticket counter, pace back and forth and are clearly uneasy. The difference is a matter of confidence. The people with confirmed tickets have the assurance they will take the plane and reach their destination. This is similar to those who truly believe in God, and place their trust in Jesus, and today’s verse reminds us, these will be sealed or guaranteed redemption. If we are tempted and stray from God, God is faithful to bring us back to Him one day. We will never lose our salvation if we are truly His. That is why people say, “Once saved, always saved.” It is like you being a son or daughter of your parents, you will always be their child, no matter what you do. Likewise, once we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are sealed the moment we become Christians.

However, although we are saved and sealed forever, we are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? It means we cannot sadden the Holy Spirit by living a life of continuous and deliberate disobedience to God. There are some people who abuse the doctrine of “Once saved, always saved.”, thinking they can still go to heaven while continuing to live in sin and disobedience. People who think like that are probably not saved in the first place. Why? Because a true believer, a real Christian, will be convicted of his sins and will want to please Jesus. Such a person will want to live a new life of victory over sin, and will not want to indulge in continuous and deliberate disobedience to God. us, it is very important that as we understand the concept of salvation, we must not grieve the Holy Spirit.

Write T for True or F for False against these statements.

1. If we sin occasionally, we will lose our salvation.

2. The Holy Spirit seals us to show that we belong to God forever.

3. We are sealed the moment we believe.

4. True believers will not want to grieve the Holy Spirit.

Thought: We are forever safe in the arms of Jesus!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us eternal security when You sealed us with the Holy Spirit. It is so wonderful to be given this gift of eternal life! In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.