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I'll answer this as carefully as possible. Also, I regretfully have no scripture to give, but someone may be able to help me out here.

According to here: Backslidden means to have dropped to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards or To revert to sin or wrongdoing, especially in religious practice.

Now....

That depends on how you define salvation. It is possible to fall away from God; as in moving away from him or putting a wall between yourself and God.


Now I'll tread very carefully here. I believe this question is very much under debate. The answer to this question is a clear No, but with a slight exception. Once you accept Christ, it's impossible to lose salvation. (Also Pertaining to the next question) So no matter what you do, God will always love you and accept you into heaven. To lose your salvation would be to utterly turn around and reject God in which case you wouldn't care on whether or not you have backslidden. Backslidden merely means you've just distanced yourself from God for your own personal reasons. Luke 15:11-32 contains the Parable of the Lost Son, which serves as an example of being backslidden (and returning to God).

I've done the best I've could to answer you. I'm sure someone will come along and add to my response.

God Bless

This should be no big surprise. Jesus has said that not one iota of the law will dissappear. We should want to do the things that God tells us to do. But how many of us can say that we do this all the time or at least to the perfection that God demands? Fortunately, Jesus continues and says that he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it! That means that our salvation is no longer dependent on us. It means that we now trust in Jesus's fulfillment of the law FOR US. While we can lose our faith, you would not care about it if you had truly lost it. Same here, because you care about the Law and know that you can never do it as God likes, it is enough that you believe and have faith that Jesus did it for you and want to do better. This is what St. Paul is talking about.

Here is a perfect example of God saving work. He chooses you (not the other way around). Read the whole paragraph and you see that Jesus is saying that he is giving you his righteousness. He is grafting you into the Vine and allowing you to produce fruit. Once again we see "man" in the passive sense, meaning the action is done TO him. Jesus does good works for our benefit. Who is the only one that can do God's work or abide in the Father's Law? Not you. Definitely not me. So again we see the need to lean on the work that the Christ HAS DONE for us and trust in that, not our own wretched selves. We pray to abide in the Law and the Love of the Father because we are saved. If we weren't saved, we wouldn't care.


All you need to do is read verse 39 and you will see that "we" [christians] are not apart of them that draw back.

All of these stem from doubts. We all have them so don't be ashamed of them, repent of them!
Doubt your doubts!! Do not doubt God's saving work He does to you. It is not you that holds onto your salvation nor does it depend on how close you are to God! It is God who holds and saves and he who brings you close.
What is the only sin that we know of that is unforgivable? If we committ that sin, we wouldn't care to be forgiven or not. Because you care about being worthy, and pray and work to do better, means you have an abundance of faith!!

I left my wallet in El Segundo.

A Tribe Called Quest.