There are many people today who believe they are a Christians, despite how they are currently living. These people no longer attend church. They never pray or read their Bible. Worse yet, they have sinful habits and blatantly disregard God’s standards and instructions on how to live. Yet they feel certain they will go to heaven when they die. Such people typically look back to a moment in their past, when they prayed a “sinners prayer” or walked an aisle during an alter call, or raised their hand when an evangelist asked who wanted to become a Christian.
Today, there is no evidence, from their lifestyle, that they are followers of Christ, yet these people rest assured that “once saved, always saved.” While it is true that you cannot “lose” your salvation, it is also a fact that those who are born again, act born again. Christians will certainly sin. Being a follower of Jesus does not mean you are perfect, or sinless. But there will be evidence, somewhere in your life that the Holy Spirit dwells within you.
People who have embraced a sinful lifestyle ought to beware. Those who walk in darkness are people who do not dwell in the light. A true Christian cannot embrace a lifestyle of sin without any sense of remorse or conviction. The Holy Spirit dwelling within them would not allow that. We need to stop assuring people who are continually living in sin that they are children of God. If they have rejected God’s ways and are habitually sinning, then clearly any “decision” they made earlier in their life was not genuine. It matters not whether they prayed the “sinner’s prayer” 1,000 times. The key is whether God “heard” their prayer and changed their life.