For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (John 3:17) Saved is the born again (John 3:3) experience where God writes His Laws on our heart (Jeremiah 31:33)(2Cor.5:17)(Romans 2:14-15) so we can instinctively reject ungodliness (what the Bible calls sin) & worldly passions and live holy upright, self controlled lives in this present world (Titus 2:11-12). When we walk in and are guided/controlled by the Holy Spirit, we won’t do the wrong things that our flesh may want to do (Galatians 5:16). It’s important to realize that you are 3 parts. A spirit & you have a soul (mind, will & emotions) and live in a body (1 Thess. 5:23). The only part of us that gets born again(saved instantly) is our spirit or heart (the real you on the inside). The saving of the soul(James 1:21) is a purification process of renewing our mind & emotions with God’s word to think like He does, and exercising self control over our flesh(bodies) if it wants to do something we know instinctively (Romans 2:14-15) in our heart is wrong. One day at the resurrection you will get a new body (1Cor. 15:51-54).
“So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’ 9And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. 10But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. 11And when they had received it, they complained against the landowner, 12saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.’ 13But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.” (Matthew 20:8-16)
(In this parable the Landowner is Jesus. The denarius is eternal life which Jesus earned for us on the cross when he bore our sins in His own sinless body(1Peter2:24) & paid the price to God the Father for our sins because we could not. He gives eternal life(denarius) to us, as a free gift of His Grace (Romans 6:23). Unfortunately some people in this parable believed somehow “they earned the denarius themselves=eternal life” which is impossible. They forgot that Jesus(Landowner) earned it, and it’s none of their business who he gives it too. He gives it to some at the 1st hour(when they are young), but some at the 11th hour (on their death bed or like the thief on the cross). Jesus gives the denarius(eternal life) to whoever calls on His name for salvation(Romans 10:13). We are saved by Jesus’s gracious gift of salvation(eternal life) & not of our own works so no one can boast(Ephesians 2:8-9).
The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever. (Psalm 119:160) (It’s absolutely essential to look at the entirety of God’s word on salvation. If not, you might not realize that although salvation is a free gift of Jesus, you need to work it out with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) because without holiness no one will see God (Hebrews 12:14). (Let’s look below at how important saying no to sin is)
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. (Matthew 5:29) (Jesus is issuing a dire warning of the importance of saying no (repentance) to what the Bible calls sin, because without repentance, there is no forgiveness (Luke 24:45-47). Then he helped them to understand God’s message in the Bible. 46He told them, ‘This is what it says there: The Messiah had to die. Then, after three days, he had to rise up and become alive again. 47People in every country of the world must hear God’s message. They must stop doing wrong things and change how they live. When they do this, God will forgive them. He will forgive all the bad things that they have done. People need to tell this message about the Messiah in Jerusalem first, then tell people in other countries.
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,(Hebrews 6:1) (The Bible says the most elementary principle of Christ is Repentance from sin – It is the first recorded message Jesus preached (Matthew 4:17) From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”)
Beloved, God does not expect perfection the day after you prayed to accept Jesus as your Lord. If that were the case, he would not have put in the Lord’s Prayer(Matt. 6:12), to ask God daily for His forgiveness for our mistakes. He does expect us to grow(1 Peter 2:2)(1Cor. 3:1-3), improve and mature over time into the full stature of Christ. It is the reason he has given us the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher. He said it is to perfect us (Ephesians 4:11-13). That we might be conformed to the image of Christ over time (Romans 8:29).
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (Titus 2:11-12) (God’s grace is His power to help us live a godly Christian life and not deny that we know Jesus by the way we live our lives (Titus 1:16). Unfortunately, there are godless people who pervert the grace of God into a license to sin. Jesus’s half brother Jude observed this same thing in his day as we see below.(Jude 1:4)
Godless people have slipped in among you. They turn the grace of our God into unrestrained immorality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Judgment was passed against them a long time ago. (Jude 1:4)(Unfortunately some people have a misunderstanding of God’s Grace as a way to sin freely, but the opposite is true) For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.(Romans 6:14)
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21) (Note that the Apostle Paul is writing to born again, spirit filled believers warning them repeatedly, that they are misunderstanding God’s grace as being a license to get away with sin. If these believers continue in their sin, they will have no inheritance in the kingdom of God, which means hell.
But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit]. (1Corinthians 9:27) (Isn’t it interesting that even 20 years after the Apostle Paul’s Damascus road conversion to Christianity, his body was still wanting to do things that were wrong. He is exercising extreme self control by beating his body into subjection, so as not to backslide into hell over unrepentant sin. If the Apostle Paul had to be vigilant and exercise extreme self control, than so do we! With God’s grace(power) we can do it & must do it beloved)
But he who endures to the end shall be saved. (Matthew 24:13)(The majority of the Apostles were murdered for not renouncing Christ as their Lord. Many Christians died in Roman coliseums for refusing to renounce Christ as Lord. These days Muslim extremists will threaten Christians with beheading unless they renounce Christ as Lord. Your commitment to Christ must be to the death or you will loose your salvation.