Eternal and forever mean the same thing, Nubian, and Jesus made it crystal clear that Hell was eternal/forever. What if we left the word games to Bigd?

Here are my thoughts on this:

It is a fact that once you have accepted God that God "will never leave" you. But, how did you accept God to begin with? Volunteer action, meaning it was a choice you made. We have "FREE WILL" which gives us a choice at all times. This ultimately means "IF" I can choose to accept God I can also choose to walk away from God. It is by a human's choice they can lose their salvation (work out your own salvation with "fear and trembling" is the best indication of being able to lose it).

God would be a liar to give us "FREE WILL" to accept Him if we cannot have "FREE WILL" to deny him even after accepting him. By claiming one cannot lose their salvation makes God a liar. Because you can lose your salvation by "FREE WILL" any time you want.

I could just stop reading my bible, seeking truth, praying, and deny God and go about doing harm unto others. That is what I have the ability to do in "FREE WILL". IF I cannot "lose my salvation" what is the purpose of "FREE WILL"?

God CANNOT REWARD ME if I choose to do evil from this point on until I die. WHY would God reward me and put me in heaven if I "FREE WILLINGLY" did harm to others for the rest of my life. I would have clearly done more BAD actions than GOOD. How can I justifiably get heaven as a reward for that?

The only thing you posted that was correct, is your first line, "here are my thoughts"

God's thoughts, are not your thoughts, his ways are not your ways.
But all to often, people want to use "our thoughts and our ways" to explain what God would do or think.

This subject is beat to death.
And nobody want to find the truth, they want their way the be truth.

You mentioned calling God a liar.

Matt. 7:23
And then will I profess unto them, I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Let's look at "your thoughts"

I can know God, and God know me, but if I stop searching for truth and or doing his will, you say I lose my salvation.

Now read the bonded statement above and explain how God can say, "I NEVER KNEW YOU" when he once "DID KNOW ME" and it not be a lie?

Are you gonna claim God misspoke? That he didn't mean "never" but that he had just forgotten?

Well, he doesn't forget either.

Isaiah 49:15
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

Even in the above, God shows the ways man, are not his way.
Woman, mankind, may forget, their children, come to a place they have no compassion on them, but he, God, never will forget, never will lose his compassion.

Was the prophet wrong in speaking those words?
Will God forget and fail to have compassion on his children?

And speaking of children.
what did God say concerning his children?

Heb 12:4
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?8But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons

Pay real close attention to that. "ye have not resisted unto blood" what was he looking for them to resist?
Sin!!
But they had forgotten the exhortation, the encouragement given from the lord and from the scriptures and were not doing as they should.
but nevertheless, God didn't cast them aside, God didn't say, "it's by your freewill" that you walk away from me.

It said, the lord chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he loves, and if ye endure chastisement God dealeth with you as sons, but if ye be without chastisement ye are bastards and not sons.

do you hear that?
A bastard, one without a father, not a orphan, or a runaway, but a bastard.

I'm no bastard, maybe you are.
But I have a father, whom chasteneth me when I do wrong, he doesn't forget me.

now, these are not my thoughts, I provided scriptures.
Will you change your thoughts to agree with the scriptures or just pretend your thoughts and your ways are equal to Gods.

God will never forsake us. But if we follow after Him for awhile, and then quit following Him, like Judas Iscariot, or like Esau, we have forsaken Him. The state of grace can be rejected and God will respect our free will.

Right now I'm sitting in my taxi at the bus station. Suppose someone bought someone a ticket to, say, Detroit. A free bus ticket. The Greyhound Company won't revoke or forsake it. But the person who got the free ticket could get off the bus in Birmingham or Nashville or somewhere and hitchike back to Florida. The bus driver is not going to force the person to ride all the way if the person doesn't want to.

Its hard to get people that think they make their Salvation by their works to understand loop. Its hard for people who have pride in their works , and follow doctrine dictated by their Church to ever acknowledge that it is all from Jesus.

Ephesians 2:8-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)

8 For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God; 9 not as a result of [your] works [nor your attempts to keep the Law], so that no one will [be able to] boast or take credit in any way [for his salvation].


Romans 8:31-39Amplified Bible (AMP)

31 What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be [successful] against us? 32 He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us [declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself]. 34 Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us. 35 Who shall ever separate us from the love of [a]Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 Just as it is written and forever remains written,

“For Your sake we are put to death all day long;
We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.”
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us]. 38 For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If they cannot accept that, then there is no way they ever will Regeneration:

2 Corinthians 5:17 Amplified Bible (AMP)

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].

Titus 3:5-7 Amplified Bible (AMP)

5 He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but because of His own compassion and mercy, by the cleansing of the new birth (spiritual transformation, regeneration) and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that we would be justified [made free of the guilt of sin] by His [compassionate, undeserved] grace, and that we would be [acknowledged as acceptable to Him and] made heirs of eternal life [actually experiencing it] according to our hope (His guarantee).


John 3:3-8 Amplified Bible (AMP)

3 Jesus answered him, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless a person is born again [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified], he cannot [ever] see and experience the kingdom of God.”

4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical], and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be surprised that I have told you, ‘You must be born again [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified].’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

If one insists that their Salvation depends on works? There is no way they will understand that being born again, in a spiritual way , means one is a son or daughter. And that just like our physical birth we had nothing to do with, that all came from our parents, so it is with our spiritual birth in Christ.

To admit this? Takes away from their own illusion that it is their works that maintains their Salvation. One with pride cannot accept such concepts.

Good luck.

Judas believed in Jesus. After Judas died, Jesus said about him, it would have been better for that man had he never been born, a strong hint he went to Hell.

Would you agree then, those who know God and freely commit vile sins have "separated themselves" from God on their own account? Not that God does not want to be there because he will never leave. But, that God's hands are tied, if we refuse him, and deny him, by sinning and committing evil free will actions before God.

How can God justify a person going to heaven?
If that person does everything God's does not want us to do (breaks the 10 Commandments daily for rest of their life AFTER knowing God).

Will God allow a person into heaven?
If they are doing as those going to hell? Even, if they did once know God. But have now, denied Him?

Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.

If professed believers bear not these fruits of the divine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are useless branches on the living vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you progress heavenward in the kingdom of God. You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood.

-TUB

KB,

I enjoyed that point of view very much. But will God allow a root, that has completely withered away, and will never "bear fruit", into the garden?

How far, can one turn and go completely towards the opposite direction of God's plan. Before, God has no choice but to do as this person desires (to not be with God any more)?

We all want to sin. We are all, including Jesus Himself, tempted to sin.

Who told me I would never sin again? Who told me I would never even want to sin? The Methodist ministers and seminarians who ran Blue Lake Camp near Andalusia, Alabama back in the late 1960s, when I was in my teens.

Even the best of us sometimes want to sin and are tempted to sin. "Oh, I'm saved, I never even want to sin" is absurd, opposed to reality,opposed to common sense, opposed to anyone's experience, and shame on those Methodist minusters and seminarians who taught junior high school students this falsehood. Kids that age should be taught about the moral dangers of the world, not that they would never want to sin again.