In some things, it’s not how you start but how you finish. That can be said about our relationship with Christ also. Some people seem to start in faith with the Lord but with time their apparent relationship with Him dies. The question is, what is their eternal fate?
I know that is a loaded question. Be it far from me to try and discern true believers from those who are not. That is the Lord’s business and His alone. But we know that not everyone who claims to be or even appears to be a true believer is a true believer.
One mark of genuine believers is that they endure until the end. Consider these words found in the book the Hebrews: “For we are made partakers of Christ, IF we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end” (Hebrews 3:14, KJV). According to this verse, those who are partakers of Christ endure until the end.
Moreover, in His parable of the seed and the sower, Jesus addressed four kinds of hearers when the Word of God is being ministered. He compared some hearers to seed that fell in stony places. He explained:
“This is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”
Matthew 13:20-21, NASB
I believe many churchgoers fall into this category of hearers. This does not mean true believers can’t get off course along the way. Sometimes, they do. But if and when they stray from the way, they don’t cast off their faith. A true believer’s convictions about Christ are neither wishy-washy nor temporal.
Faith That Endures Until the End
In his first epistle, John talks about those who started out with them but did not stay with them. This is what he said about that:
“They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us”
1 John 2:19, NASB
Based upon what John writes, one way to distinguish a true believer from one who is not is by whether or not he stays in the fold of believers. The point is that it’s not enough for us to say “I do” to the Lord one day, but we must endure until the end.
Each one of us is on a personal journey with God. No two person’s journey is exactly the same. We must be careful to not judge another person through the lens of our own experience. Sometimes, it may appear to us that a person is not a true believer. They seem to always be struggling. They never seem to get the upper hand in life. But perhaps—just perhaps–if we were in that person’s shoes, we wouldn’t handle the situation nearly as well as they are.
We are not saved by works but by grace through our faith in Christ. None of us will dot every “i” and cross every “t” in our walk with Christ. But the good news is that doing so is not a requirement for salvation. We are called to live by faith–not by works. It is the ones who keep the faith until the end who shall be saved.
Copyright © 2023 by Frank King. All rights reserved.