Our Walk with Him
How we come to know Him and what the life He gives looks like: new birth, assurance, and following Him when we fail.
Our Walk with Him
What does it mean to be born again?
To be born again is to receive new spiritual life from God through faith in Christ: a second birth, not of the flesh but of the Spirit, which makes you a child of God and a new creation. It is the doorway of the entire Christian life.
Our Walk with Him
Can I lose my salvation?
No. Salvation is the work of God: secured by Christ, sealed by the Spirit, and kept by His power. Those who truly belong to Him cannot be snatched from His hand. Scripture's warnings against falling away call us to persevere in real faith, not to doubt God's ability to keep His own.
Our Walk with Him
What happens when I sin after I've come to Christ?
When a believer sins, their salvation is not undone; Christ is their advocate with the Father. But the Spirit is grieved and fellowship is clouded. The remedy is confession: God is faithful to forgive and cleanse, and He grows us through our failures.
Our Walk with Him
What should I do now that I'm saved?
Now that you belong to Christ, the life of faith begins: follow Him, abide in Him, be changed into His likeness, love His people, bear witness to His grace, and grow in the knowledge of Christ. Not to earn salvation, but because of it.
Our Walk with Him
How do I fight sin in my life?
You fight sin not by grit alone, but by reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, and by walking in the Spirit. It is a battle of faith, winnable not because you are strong, but because He is.
Our Walk with Him
What is the difference between being born again and being baptized?
Being born again is the Spirit's work of giving new life within; baptism is the water sign of that new life, given to believers, by which they are publicly joined to Christ in His death and resurrection. One is the reality God does in the heart; the other is the sign that declares it to the world.
Our Walk with Him
Does James contradict Paul? Is it faith or works?
No. Paul and James answer two different questions. Paul asks how a person is declared righteous before God, and answers: by faith alone. James asks how we can tell a faith is real, and answers: by the works that genuine faith produces. Far from contradicting, they complete each other: real saving faith always works.
Our Walk with Him
What does the new life look like day to day?
The new life is a new direction more than an instant perfection: it is daily abiding in Christ, walking by the Spirit, feeding on the Word, praying, belonging to the church, and getting back up when we fall. It looks like a life that is being renewed, not a life that has already arrived.
Our Walk with Him
How do I know the Spirit's witness from my own feelings?
The Spirit's witness is a fact grounded in God's promise, not a mood to be chased. He testifies with our spirit that we are God's children; we hold that testimony by faith in what God has said, not by the shifting temperature of our feelings. Feelings are real, but the Word is the anchor.
Our Walk with Him
Does God use our failures for our good?
Yes. Scripture's own story is full of people whose worst hours God worked into something good: Joseph's betrayal, Peter's denial, Paul's thorn. The promise of Romans 8 is that God works all things, even our failures, for good for those who love Him, and the good He is working is our growth into the likeness of Christ.
Our Walk with Him
Where does temptation come from?
Temptation rises from within, from our own desires, and it is also pressed on us from without, by a real enemy who distorts God's word. It never comes from God. Temptation itself is not sin, and its power is broken by the Word, by faith, and by the way of escape God promises to provide.
Our Walk with Him
What is the new heart that God promised?
God promised through the prophets to give His people a new heart: not just better behavior but a changed inner life, with the heart of stone replaced by a heart of flesh, His law written on the heart, and His Spirit put within to enable obedience. That promise is fulfilled in the new covenant in Christ, where God gives us new hearts and puts His Spirit in us, working in us both to will and to do His good pleasure.
Our Walk with Him
What does it mean to be a child of God?
To be a child of God is to be brought, by the new birth and by adoption, into the family of God: given the right to be God's child through faith in Christ, sealed with the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry 'Abba, Father,' made heirs with Christ, and called to live as children who resemble their Father. It is the deepest belonging a person can have, and it is permanent.
Our Walk with Him
What does it mean to be sealed with the Holy Spirit?
To be sealed with the Holy Spirit is God's mark of ownership upon us and His guarantee of our inheritance. When we believed the gospel, God sealed us with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the down payment of what is coming. The seal means we belong to God and are secure until the day of redemption. It is God's doing, not ours, and it is the ground of our assurance.
Our Walk with Him
Can God's grace really cover my worst sins?
Yes. The gospel is made for the worst of us. Scripture's own story includes David, Peter, and Paul the self-called chief of sinners, all met by grace. Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more; God promises that sins as scarlet become white as snow and that our transgressions are removed as far as the east from the west. Christ is able to save to the uttermost, and there is no sin His blood cannot cleanse and no repentant sinner beyond His reach.
Our Walk with Him
How do I share my faith with others?
Sharing faith is less about a perfect script and more about a prepared life and a ready answer. Scripture calls us to be ready to give a reason for the hope within us, to walk in wisdom toward outsiders, to let our speech be gracious, to tell what the Lord has done for us, and to trust God with the results, who alone opens hearts and doors for the gospel.
Our Walk with Him
What is the difference between testing and temptation?
Scripture uses related but distinct words: testing is what God allows to prove and strengthen us, while temptation is the enticement to sin, which never comes from God. James makes the difference explicit: God tempts no one. The same difficulty can be, by grace, a test that builds endurance, or, if yielded to, a temptation that becomes sin. We can face trials with joy and resist temptation by relying on God's faithfulness and His way of escape.
Our Walk with Him
What is sanctification, and how does it happen?
Sanctification is the lifelong work of the Holy Spirit by which God makes us progressively holy, conforming us to the likeness of Christ. It is rooted in our union with Christ, who became to us sanctification; it is worked in us by the Spirit through the Word; and it calls for our active participation. By grace, God sets us apart and is at work changing us from one degree of glory to another, so that our lives increasingly reflect our holy calling.
Our Walk with Him
What is the difference between assurance and presumption?
Assurance is the confidence the Spirit gives through God's promise and the fruit He produces in a life that trusts Christ. Presumption is confidence with nothing behind it: a claim to belong to Jesus that a look at the life does not support. The difference is not in the strength of the feeling but in its basis: one rests on the testimony of God, the other on a wish.
Our Walk with Him
How do trials make us more like Christ?
God uses trials not to break us but to shape us: testing produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Through suffering we are conformed into the image of Christ, depend on His grace, and grow in the holiness that belongs to Him. No trial feels good in the moment, but God works through it for our good and His glory.
Our Walk with Him
Why should I keep enduring, if I can't lose my salvation?
Because God keeps His people through their perseverance, not apart from it. The same Bible that says no one can snatch us from His hand also calls us to endure to the end. The warnings are not the contradiction of the promise; they are how He keeps us. Perseverance is not the price of salvation but the shape of it.
Our Walk with Him
Who can forgive sins?
Only God can forgive sins, and He forgives directly and completely when we confess to Him. Jesus claimed this divine prerogative for Himself, and everyone who confesses finds a faithful and just Forgiver. Believers confess to one another as equals praying for equals, but no one stands between a sinner and God's pardon.
Our Walk with Him
What does the Bible mean by being 'holy'?
To be holy is to be set apart for God, and to become like the God you are set apart for. Holiness starts not with a rule list but with God's own character: He says, 'You shall be holy; for I, Yahweh your God, am holy,' and then sets His people apart from the world so that their lives look like Him.
Our Walk with Him
What if I keep repeating the same sin?
Repeated sin does not mean God has run out of patience: 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us.' But it should be taken seriously, not shrugged at. Scripture holds both together honestly: the righteous may fall seven times and rise again, and the Lord chastens every son He loves, because His goal is not just pardoning you but changing you.
Our Walk with Him
How does God actually change me?
Not by trying harder. Scripture says God changes us the way life works, not the way machines run: He gives a new heart, puts His Spirit within, and then works in us both to want and to do what pleases Him. We remain in Christ like branches in a vine, behold His glory until we are transformed, and actively put off the old self and put on the new. Your effort matters, but it is response, not engine: God supplies the power, and the fruit appears over time.
Our Walk with Him
How does being a child of God change how I live?
If God is your Father, then your identity is secure before your behavior catches up. Knowing you are His child changes your motives for obedience, your response to failure, your view of others, and your hope for the future. You do not obey to become accepted; you obey because you already are.
Our Walk with Him
What role does prayer play in sharing the gospel?
Prayer is not a warm-up act before evangelism; it is the engine. Paul urges believers to pray for open doors, for boldness, and for the right words, because the battle for souls is spiritual before it is physical. The early church prayed, and the word spread.