"I can't talk with my mother about it," Lisa said to Kay. "She just gets upset and mopes around the house getting me depressed. I wish she'd go back to Chicago. I'm going to die. I've come to accept that. My cancer is terminal, and that's that. But I want to face death squarely and openly, you know what I mean?"

Kay nodded. But, of course, she did not know what Lisa meant. Kay had never faced death, at least not in the way Lisa was facing it now, knowing she probably had less than a year.

As they walked quietly across the yard, they relived some pieces of their friendship. It was not far from Kay's yard to Lisa's, but the way was lined with memories. They passed Lisa's flower bed. It was the one that caused, or should I say forced, them to meet when Lisa had asked Kay to keep her boys from running all over her roses. Then there was that spot on the sidewalk where Lisa's husband first told Kay that Lisa had terminal cancer.

In all this Kay tried to find a way to tell her new friend about her faith in Jesus Christ. But it was awkward. Not just because Lisa was dying--they talked freely about that. But how could she bring up the subject of salvation? The two neighbor couples had gone out to dinner several times. After Lisa's surgery, Kay had bought her a new nightgown. Some days Kay just knocked on Lisa's door before going to the store to see if there was anything she could get her. And when Lisa was up and around, they had gone to lunch together. Generally, both talked impulsively, rattling on about who knows what. But today Lisa seemed quiet and thoughtful. They went into her house and got themselves glasses of iced tea.

"Kay," Lisa asked, staring blindly into her glass of tea, "do you think I'm good enough to get into heaven?"

"Honey, it's not a matter of being good," Kay answered. "It only depends on believing in Jesus Christ as your Savior."

"I know," Lisa continued. "But what if I stop believing? Aren't there Christians who believe for a while and then stop?"

"I'm sure there are," Kay answered. "It's certainly possible to stop believing and start doubting. But God's gift of eternal life isn't like that. It doesn't depend on what we do. After we receive it, we can't give it back."

"But gifts can be given back."

"Only some kinds," Kay continued. "A while back I gave you a new nightgown. You could give that back all right. But suppose I had given you a polio vaccination, and later you stopped believing that vaccinations did any good. Could you give it back?"

"I see what you mean," Lisa mumbled into her tea.

"And the Bible says eternal life in Christ is just that kind of gift."

"But I just know He's going to ask me about some of the awful things I've done," Lisa insisted.

"Let me ask you this," Kay went on. "How many sins did Jesus pay for when He died on the cross?"

"All of them, I guess."

"And when you receive Christ, that payment is applied to you, isn't it?"

"I guess so," Lisa answered with uncertainty.

"Well, then, when you accept Christ, all your sins are paid for," Kay explained, "all you've done and all you ever will do."

"But how do you know God's gift is really like that?" Lisa asked.

"The Bible says it was written 'to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life' [1 John 5:13]. It never says anything about maintaining eternal life. Anything eternal is unable to end. Since we get this eternal life when we 'believe in the name of the Son of God,' it is something we have now, not just later. So if we have eternal life now, we couldn't possibly lose it later, or it wouldn't be eternal."

"So you think God will let me into heaven no matter what I've done?" Lisa inquired.

"I don't think a person's getting into heaven has anything to do with what she's done. Saving people from their sinful condition is work, all right, but God did all the work. If you receive Him, then your getting into heaven depends on Him, no you. The question is not, Are you good enough? but, Was Jesus Christ good enough?"

Lisa and Kay talked about four separate questions that surrounded this topic. Let's look at them a bit closer.

It is possible, of course, for Christians to stop believing. I suppose every Christian stops believing God at some time or other. Maybe even several times a day. But what is usually assumed is that those who stop believing also stop being saved--and that is contrary to the Bible. The apostle Peter tells us we are "born again . . . to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:3-4, italics added).

Suppose you make a decision to get on an airplane to Chicago, then after you are on board you stop believing in airplanes. Are you going to get to Chicago or not? Getting there does not depend on you ongoing belief or the absence of it. It depends on the airplane. In the same way, once we have received Christ, our eternal life depends on God and not on our ongoing faith.

Speaking about those who believed in Him, Jesus said, "I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand" (John 10:28). Christ said no one, not no one except ourselves. We can stop believing, but we cannot stop being eternally saved. Salvation from sin is the kind of gift that cannot be returned--like the polio vaccination Kay mentioned to Lisa.

Can we be assured God will not ask us about sins committed after deciding to trust Christ? The answer lies in an understanding of what happened when Jesus died on the cross. The Bible, speaking of Christ's death, says "through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men" (Romans 5:18, italics added). "All men" includes lots of men who were not even born. Yet their sins were paid for, too. Christ's death on the cross paid for all the sins of all time, not only the ones that had happened up to that time. When we receive Him as our own Savior, He applies that payment to us. So all our future sins are just as paid for as our past ones--even our sins of disbelief.

Eternal life is not eternal life unless it is eternal. Jesus said, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life" (John 3:36, italics added). But He went on to explain that that eternal life begins not when we get to heaven but as soon as we receive Him as our Savior (John 5:24). Now either Jesus was telling the truth or He wasn't. And if He was, then those who receive Him have a salvation that is eternal from that point on.

Our salvation is based on God's ability, not ours. "He saved us," Paul told Titus, "not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5, italics added). In other words, God did the saving. It is not something we do anything to get or keep. We simply receive it.

When my daughters were very small, each liked to hold my finger in her hand, but I held her whole hand with my fingers. When she fell, as she inevitably did, she could not hold my finger tightly enough to keep herself from falling. But I held onto her hand tightly enough to keep her up. The fact that she did not fall depended on me, not her. Sometimes she even wanted to fall, but I would not let her. So it is with God. He does not keep us from stumbling or even from rebelling and wanting to fall, but He does keep us from falling out of our eternal relationship with Himself. When we receive Him, we become "children of God" (John 1:12). When I became a child of my parents, I could decide to be a good child or a bad child, but I could never lose my position as a child in my family.

Kay sensed that Lisa was not a Christian; that is, she had never personally received Christ. Kay was right. Often when people have trouble being sure of their position with God, they are not real believers. The Bible says, "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:16). Kay could not see any of that inward confirmation from God in Lisa's life. It is important to understand that although we can have assurance of our salvation, we should not be in a hurry to give that assurance to people who still do not show the leading of God's Spirit in their lives after a long time. "For," Paul writes, "all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God" (Romans 8:14, italics added).

Lisa and her husband began going to a Bible-teaching church. After many other conversations with Kay and various people from that church, Lisa received Jesus Christ as her own personal Savior. Her husband also accepted Christ during that time.

One day Lisa came over to Kay's house all excited about her decision to accept Christ. "All the things you told me are so clear now," she said. "It's like giant blinders have been taken off my understanding."

Two months later Lisa went home to be with the Lord Jesus Christ whom she had come to know and love.