“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35).
True Christians have been saved from the penalty of sin for one reason alone: because of “the love of God, which is [manifested] in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
St. John wrote by divine inspiration:
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation [satisfaction] for our sin.
“We love Him because He first loved us” (I John 4:10,19).
Let us understand this clearly and remember it always. It is not our love to Him, but His love to us, that saves us — and it is His love to us that keeps us saved. This is where we must begin the Christian life.
A wayward husband returned to his grieving wife one day, after many months of living in sin. Sobbing his heart out in remorse and shame, he told her how often he had longed to be home again with the wife he knew to be so true to him. Asked why, then, he had not returned sooner, he explained that he was ashamed; to which his wife replied: “John, I want you to know something and never forget it: I love you.” John sobbed in response: “Who wouldn’t want to live for a woman like this!”
Just so it is the knowledge that Christ loves us no matter what; that nothing shall ever separate us from His love; it is this that makes the sincere believer determine, by God’s grace, to be always true to Him.
Thus the Scripture doctrine of the believer’s eternal security in Christ by no means leads to careless living. On the contrary, it affords the greatest possible motivation to “live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world” (Tit. 2:11,12).
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.