I thought I would share something that I have been learning about for the last 8 years or so.
7 years before my son’s untimely, tragic death.
This is not something I was taught in church.
There have been many times in my life that something didn’t sit quite right with me when I heard the Bible being taught whether at church or bible study or on television.
One of those things was that you can lose your salvation, like you would lose a set of keys.
You could lose it by your actions, by your lifestyle,you might do something horribly bad and lose it. Now, let me interject that you can renounce salvation, it is not EASILY done but it is possible to renounce it.
One time I was at a retreat and there was a big debate about losing your salvation.
Around 20 Women were there and three of us were debating the other 17.
I couldn’t tell you back then why I believed that you couldn’t lose it, like you lose a set of keys, but I knew their arguments, no matter how biblical, no matter how many verses they had to back it up wasn’t lining up in my heart.
Now I am able tell you after years of hearing the Word of God, why it was not lining up in my heart.
We have to realize that God is after our hearts. When we hear the truth that sets us free, it resonates in the depths of our hearts.
A decision is made with our souls which contains our minds, will and emotions.
We all know that we’re not perfect. We’ve all failed the 10 Commandments.
Those 10 Commandments were actually given to us through Moses to prove to us that it is impossible for us to keep them, that we need a savior.
A perfect savior who kept them for us because we can’t.
The law was given  so that we would cry out,”I can’t do this! Dear God save me!”
Did you ever hear it taught that way in Sunday school? Vacation bible school? Pioneer Girls? Awana? Â I didn’t.
I got saved every Sunday, born again and again and again because after the wonderful teaching about the Hero’s of the Bible and all of the scripture-based Sunday school songs that I learned and have hidden in my heart from the time I was two years old, there would be a sinister plot twist in the Sunday school lesson!
I can see the teacher and hear her saying “now, if you’ve done anything this week that you know was wrong and would make Jesus sad, you can come back with me and we will pray the salvation prayer.”
Well I knew Jesus wasn’t pleased with me even as a 4,5,6,7 or 8 year-old little girl based on my actions, based on my performance!
He wasn’t pleased when I hit my brother or pulled his hair. When I was bossy, or when I yelled at my brothers, if I was a tattletale, and of course I didn’t always listen and obey  my parents…
I mean the list could go on and on.
By the time I hit my teenage years and early 20s, I was a hopeless godforsaken mess.
At least that’s what I thought based on what I had been taught. Never measuring up, trying to do right and always failing so why try?
But somewhere deep inside was a knowing, the truth that Jesus had never left me, he had never forsaken me, he had never turned his back on me. Even in the very depths of my sin. Knowing that I was living in sin.
How did I know this?
Human beings are 3 part beings. Spirit, soul and body.
“And the very God of Peace sanctify you wholly; Â and I pray God your whole spirit,and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”( 1 Thessalonians 5:23)Â
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:23)
The very first time I got saved when I was four years old, my little spirit, was sealed by the Holy Spirit. All things in my spirit became new.
My soul, my mind my will my emotions, were left untouched.
I wasn’t a robot, I had my own free will, to this day I still do. My soul was left unchanged, it didn’t become new.
My body was the same at four years old.
I was still a little girl with long blonde hair after I got saved so my body didn’t change or become new or different at salvation.
So what changed when I decided that Yes, I want Jesus to always be with me, I want to know him, I want him to go with me wherever I go, to live on the inside of me?
My four-year-old little self believed that wanted that and you know what? My four-year-old little self was 100% right. That’s exactly what happened to me. I got saved and I’ve been saved ever since.
It’s exactly what happens to anyone who makes a decision with their soul, to believe and to receive that Jesus is God’s Son.
That Jesus, fully human, fully God, was arrested, wrongly accused, beaten with leather whips that had broken glass, stones and metal tied to the ends so that when he was mercilessly whipped on his naked body, those leather straps tore into his back, wrapped around his torso, down his buttocks and legs, and yanked out flesh and muscle until he looked like raw hamburger.
He then was made to carry his own heavy cross on his raw, bloodied back, what was left of it, up hill to where they nailed his wrists and feet with thick, long spikes through skin, tendons nerves and muscle. He hung there for 6 hours and the Bible says~
“But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.“Isaiah 52:14
Jesus didn’t even look human. Why? Because not only did he TAKE our sin, he BECAME sin, so that we might be the righteousness of God.
There was a great exchange that happened on the cross.
Our sin, the sin of the whole world, past present and future,entered his body.
His own Father God could not look at him or bring him comfort as he hung there,dying for all of humankind.
God turned his back on his only son and forsook, was separated from him so that we would never be forsaken by Him.
As Jesus was hanging there, not even recognized as a human, he cried out “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
He died there.
For us, an innocent man, fully human, fully God, became guilty for us, paid the price for us.
God’s Son, did for us what we could never ever do no matter how hard we tried.
He died, he went to hell and took the keys of hell and death (revelation 1:18) his body laid in the tomb for 3 days before God brought him back from the dead.
When he arose back to life, He only showed himself to the people who knew him.
Why not go to Pontius Pilate who ultimately sentenced him to death?
Why not go to the soldiers who beat him and mocked him and ridiculed him and nailed him to the cross?
No, Jesus showed himself to those who knew Him, who believed.
At that retreat, one of the other women that did not believe you could lose your salvation, and what a precious salvation it is said, “I think we will be surprised when we get to heaven to see how many people are there who we thought would never be there.”
I believe that she’s right. It’s only the truth that you know that sets you free.
If you’ve heard that Jesus died on the cross for your sin, and God rose Him up on the 3rd day and you believed that and received that truth no matter how young or old, you were saved. (Romans 10: 9-10)
Your spirit, the part of you that you can’t feel, you can’t touch,you can’t see was saved and sealed.
Vacuum packed.
Nothing can get in and taint that, no sin is able to penetrate that seal over your spirit no matter what you choose to do with your mind, your will, or your emotions or your body. I am not saying you can or should go out and live in sin and do whatever you want to, but nothing is going to change your spirit once you’ve been saved or born again.
Your soul is the area that contains your mind and your will, your emotions, your conscious.
Since that part of you,the soul part stayed the same as it was before you got saved or born again, the soul part is what needs to be renewed.
That’s the part of you that you choose your believe system with.
It’s easy to look at what you feel, and what you think, what you see, what you hear,what you can touch and base your believe system on tangible things, natural things.
To look at someone and judge them by their appearance or their actions at any given moment and say “oh there’s no way they are saved.” that is wrong.
Some people go through their whole entire lives sealed in their spirit, born again and their spirit is saved, but they are never taught truths that could totally change their lives if they would renew their minds to the Word of God.
It’s up to each individual to renew their soul, their mind their free will, their emotions. Renew by reading and believing God’s Word. God’s Word is the spiritual mirror. (James 1:23-25) Â It perfectly reflects who we are in the spirit.
Just like we have to reboot a computer or reset a cellphone to factory settings. We could leave those settings untouched and use the phone as is. Never fully understanding what it is capable of. If we choose to read the instructions, we can learn to unlock the potential and unleash the functions of our phone.
The same is true when we renew our minds to what the Word of God says.
This renewing of our minds does not automatically happen at salvation.
There is a choice to be made. Some people think that it should automatically happen.
It does not.
That is not what Scripture teaches.
You can have someone who gets saved, born again and still be a drug addict,an alcoholic, a murderer, fill in the blank, because their minds were not renewed.
We get caught up in the actions of others, the lifestyle, oh they’re a drunk, they do drugs, they were arrested, they have tattoos!
That honestly has nothing to do with their spirit if they believed Jesus for their salvation.
I’m preaching to myself here and maybe it will help someone out there!
Since we are a three-part being,spirit, soul and body, our body is going to line up with either our spirit, which is always in line with the word of God(my word is spirit and they are life John 6:63) or our body is going to line up with our soul (mind will emotions, what we can hear, see, taste, smell and feel.)
If we haven’t taken the time to renew our minds to the Word of God,we can go through our whole lives saved and never truly changed, neglecting to receive what Jesus was beaten for,mocked for and died to give us.
Not only for when we get to heaven in the ever after but for the here and the now.
I know this is a lot of information to take in and absorb. It’s not something that I heard one time and thought “OK now I’ve got it!” I started hearing it, learning it over 8 years ago.
Even the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing (ing present tense) by the word of God. Not having heard.
I am just so glad that Billy💗 was saved.
As I’ve mentioned before, to look at him, it was very easy to judge him. He invited that by the way that he chose to express himself and he really didn’t care what people thought about his appearance.
I know there are many people who were looking at his lifestyle, looking at the things he was doing or not doing, Â looking at his tattoos, looking at his piercings, or the way he dressed or that he smoked!
Billy’s spirit was sealed and God looks on the heart. Maybe it’s something you were wondering about your child.
If they made that decision at some point in their life,as a child, as a teenager or an adult, no matter which direction they were headed in, then their spirit was sealed. Remember,man looks on the appearance, But God looks on the heart.
Click on the link below for a visual explanation of spirit, soul and body.
Again, this subject matter is something that has not been readily taught in our times. A lot of people have been turned off by “Religion.” I grew up going to Sunday school, Church twice on Sunday’s, Wednesday nights and I went to  private schools where the Bible was taught and I had never heard it taught in a way that it finally made all the pieces fit together until I  happened to hear this word taught on television when I was 37 years old.
This ministry gives their teaching away for free. Check it out at http://www.awmi.net
I am so glad I did.
5 Non Blondes and a Senseless Murder 