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Hi Newlife, RE: "If you have unconditional salvation, then sin is a non-issue...," Sounds to me like one of these catchy, pat phrases that is designed to get you to thinking, but not necessarily because it has any sound thinking to be arrived at by all your thinking. Sin is still sin. Unconditional salvation doesn't change the nature of sin. Sin is evil. The sinner is still tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. The thief comes not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. Serious stuff; he is out to kill you, and take away everything godly that you've already built up in this life, and also take away everything good that you could build up in this life, and be rewarded for in the next. The one who uses his liberty in Christ as an occasion to sin might treat it as a non-issue, but that doesn't make it a non-issue. Sin still has dire consequences. It offends God, does despite to the Spirit, screws up marriages, & every relationship, screws up your life in every way. It's accurately likened to one eating his own vomit. To use liberty as an occasion to sin is a really stupid move, after which the sinner is walking in darkness - how great is that darness - he doesn't even know what he is stumbling over, but one thing many sinners know at that point is that far from being a non-issue, their sin has become an insurmountable issue, they're lives unmanageable, themselves out of control. In a moment of clarity, they might look back to see how foolish they were to think their liberty made sin a non-issue. To say unconditional salvation makes sin a non-issue is to adopt the attitude of the foolish sinner at his most naive point, and make a doctrine out of it. Rather say that salvation with conditions is like love with strings. We have not been freely given; we cannot freely give. The love with which we are supposed to serve one another takes on a great propensity to selfishness. The fruit of the Spirit against which there was no law now suddenly has laws that can stop it. The Spirit by which we crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts now finds us trying of ourselves to stay in salvation instead of as Jude 1:21 says, "Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Have my beliefs concerning salvation changed concerning salvation changed since I left TWI. YES! We were taught that God moved in Christ; now it is our move was error % opened the door for all manner of sin. God is ALWAYS 1st in the Spirit. Remember God said that all these spiritual matters were operated by God. 1 Corinthians 12:11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. Triple reflective pointing to God energizes, divides, & distributes. But it was changed to a car battery that we operated, not God, & we operated it at our own will. That fleshly weak will just let us back into eating our own vomit again, being desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another Since the coming of Jesus Christ with the Comforter, we're supposed to love each other like Jesus loved us. He spoke the Word to us & said the Father was doing the works in him that were the words he spoke, & that's how he kept the Adversary out of our lives. He saw the Father work & he worked - that close. We are supposed to one with Jesus & GOd the way Jesus was one with God. We're supposed to see Jesus, the head over all things to the church working - and we work - that close. And every input energized by Christ & spoken by us comes from glory and keeps the Adversary away from our family. We ride that glory trail led by the glorified one, giving us input from the place where he is - looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. That's what my understanding of salvation has evolved into. And nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Jesus made sin a non-issue. Walking as he walked keeps it that way practically - nothing less or other works. That's salvation; salvation trumps everything. Galatians 6:18 Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Tom