Lost Stories Gem #42
Why Your Pastor May Be Teaching You Wrong About Grace
There’s a phrase whispered in churches across the world with absolute certainty: “Once in grace, always in grace.” It rolls off tongues with reverence, spoken as though angels themselves breathed it into existence. Most Christians are convinced it appears somewhere in Scripture, nestled between familiar verses about salvation and eternal life.
But here’s the problem: that phrase, in its absolute form, isn’t biblical. And when we examine what grace in The Bible actually teaches, we find a far more nuanced, demanding, and ultimately hopeful message than many pastors present.
The Problem With Unconditional Assurance
The doctrine of eternal security sounds comforting. God initiated your salvation, therefore, it must continue forever. The logic seems airtight, supported by verses like John 10:28-29, where Jesus says His sheep will never perish and no one will snatch them from His hand.
But this interpretation glosses over a critical detail: what about our own choices?
Consider what Paul wrote to the Galatians: “Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?” Why would Paul express such concern if believers were eternally secure regardless of their actions? The fact that he felt compelled to warn them suggests the outcome wasn’t predetermined. Their decisions mattered.
The same tension appears in The Book of Hebrews when the writer explains: “We’ve come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.”
Notice the conditional language: “if we hold our conviction to the end.” This isn’t describing an automatic guarantee. It’s describing an ongoing responsibility.
Grace Isn’t a One-Time Transaction
When people speak of grace in The Bible, they often treat it as a stamp of approval received once and never revoked. But biblical grace operates more dynamically than that.
Paul repeatedly emphasized that “the righteous live by faith.” Not lived by faith, once, in the past tense. Instead, they live by faith, continuously, in the ongoing present. The Gospel, he wrote, “reveals the righteousness of God is from faith to faith.” This means righteousness flows from one act of faith to the next, throughout our lives.
Think of it this way: a traveler in the desert sees a mirage on the horizon and walks toward it with confidence. Upon arrival, it vanishes. But rather than despair, the traveler looks ahead and spots another one. This cycle continues throughout the journey. Biblical faith works the same way. We don’t grab hold of grace and lock it away like a family heirloom. We receive it, we live by it, and we continually reach toward it as we grow.
This is why the writer of Hebrews insisted: “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”
The warning assumes it’s possible to turn away.
The Role of Free Will in Salvation
Here’s where theology gets uncomfortable. God’s call originates in eternity. His initiation is absolute. Yet you remain free. Both truths coexist, even though our minds struggle to hold them simultaneously.
Jesus illustrated this paradox when He told Peter: “Satan has demanded that he might sift you as wheat, but I’ve prayed for you, in the hopes that your faith won’t fail.” If Peter’s faith were guaranteed, then why would Jesus need to pray for him? The prayer itself acknowledges Peter’s capacity to fail, to choose wrongly.
This isn’t harsh theology. It’s actually liberating theology, because it means:
God doesn’t override your will, even when it would be convenient
Your choices have real spiritual weight and consequence
God remains faithful and protective, but doesn’t force you to stay
You remain accountable to the calling you’ve embraced
Adam and Eve stood in Paradise with every advantage, existing in a world imbued with peace, light, and life, yet they chose to take God’s gift for granted. Conversely, believers today, living in a world of strife, darkness, and death, can choose to accept the antidote that Christ offers us.
What Happens at the Lord’s Table
Paul’s instructions about Communion reveal something crucial about theological precision. He wrote that believers should examine themselves before eating the bread and drinking the cup, because those who participate “without discerning the Lord’s body eat and drink judgment on themselves.”
Many pastors teach this means you must be worthy to partake of the elements; you must resolve all your sins first. But that misreads Paul’s point. He isn’t saying examine your worthiness. Instead, he’s saying examine whether you’re truly acknowledging the worthiness of Christ, Whose body was broken and blood was shed for you.
The issue isn’t your moral status. The issue is whether you’re actually remembering what the elements represent: Christ’s perfect sacrifice, which alone cleanses the human soul. When you lose that focus and start evaluating your own worthiness, you’ve missed the entire point of grace.
This same dynamic plays out throughout the Christian life. The enemy and our own pride conspire to shift our gaze from Christ’s sufficiency to our own performance. And in that shift, grace transforms from a gift into a burden.
False Prophets and the Deception of the End Times
Yet another warning appears that demands our attention. Jesus told His disciples: “False prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
Some theologians argue the phrase “if possible” means it actually isn’t possible, because of eternal security. But that’s circular reasoning. A warning is only necessary if the negative outcome is possible. If the elect were impervious to deception, then why mention the threat at all?
Jesus obviously felt the warning necessary. He told them plainly: “If they tell you, ‘There He is in the wilderness,’ don’t go. Or, if they say, ‘Here He is in the inner room,’ don’t believe it.” These aren’t abstract warnings to people who can’t be affected. This is urgent guidance to people who can be deceived if they’re not vigilant.
The Tension Between God’s Power and Human Choice
Can a pastor be wrong about grace? Of course they can, which is to say, they can be wrong when their teaching emphasizes one side of biblical truth while ignoring the other.
Make no mistake, though: God’s promises are absolutely reliable. His faithfulness never fails. His hand is strong enough that nothing external can snatch you away. These verses are true and powerful. But they coexist with equally true verses warning against hardness of heart, drifting away, turning back, and quenching the Spirit.
The solution, then, isn’t to dismiss one set of verses over against another set. It’s to recognize that grace operates within the paradox of divine sovereignty and human freedom. In short, God does everything required for our salvation. He initiates it. He sustains it. He offers ongoing mercy and correction. However, He doesn’t annihilate our will, because a love that eliminates choice isn’t love.
In the end, we remain secure as long as we remain in faith. Not as long as we perform perfectly, but as long as we keep reaching toward God—from faith, to faith—with the same basic trust that began our journey.
A Better Understanding of Grace
What your pastor may be missing is that biblical grace in The Bible doesn’t mean “anything goes.” It means you’ve been given an undeserved gift and invited into an ongoing relationship with the God Who gave it. As such, that relationship demands honesty about who you are, humility about what you deserve, and continual orientation toward Christ’s sacrifice.
The Hebrews writer captured it perfectly: “Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, because we don’t have a High Priest Who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have One Who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet He never sinned. So because of this, let’s approach God’s throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy to help us in our time of need.”
In other words, grace isn’t a status you achieve and maintain through perfect behavior. Rather, it’s a lifeline you keep reaching for. And the reaching—the reaching itself—is what keeps you secure.
More to Explore
If your pastor’s teaching makes you feel as though you can coast spiritually, or that your choices after becoming a Christian don’t matter, then perhaps you’re hearing something other than what Scripture teaches. The Lost Stories Channel explores these kinds of theological misconceptions in depth, helping readers understand not just what The Bible says, but why traditional interpretations sometimes miss the mark. Consider diving deeper into works that examine theological meaning of grace and how it actually functions in the life of faith.
