Part One: [ How Can Christians Lose Their Salvation? ]

Without going into a lot of philosophical or intellectual explanation, I want to present a series of scriptures that illustrate how Christians can lose their salvation once they attain it, but I want to be very clear that the path to “losing” salvation is very specific, as understanding this is important before reading the rest:

Losing our salvation means overcoming sin and temptation in every area of our lives, but then falling backwards, even if in just one area, once again casting aside God’s righteousness in continual preference for sin, eventually desiring it just like we did before we overcame it in the first place.

It is also important to note that losing our salvation is a process just like it was to gain it, James makes this very clear in the passage below as he tells believers there is a process for dying to sin again after becoming alive in Christ I cannot stress this point enough:

James is speaking to believers, not non-Christians who are already dead in sin because they do not have Jesus, he is warning those who are alive in Christ that it is possible to be overcome by sin out of their own willing choices and ultimately die again!

James 1:14-15…each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Let’s look at the specific steps in this process that James talks about as the detail in this one verse is mind-boggling:

1) We have a sinful desire
2) We listen to it long enough to be dragged out of God’s presence, into a different state of mind that does not involve resisting temptation.
3) We give in to temptation and our desire gives way to the intention to sin.
4) We either do the act of sin itself, or dwell on it mentally (remember Jesus said that bad thoughts are sinful, not just committing the acts themselves)
5) We hold onto the sin without repenting until it grows within us to the point of going from a one-time slip up to something powerful, and consistent within us–becoming part of our lifestyle.
(This is where we typically step back from the edge and do not let things grow “too powerful” and form lifestyle habits, but it is a dangerous game people do not always win)
6) Over time, once the sin has overpowered us and becomes “full-grown”, we once again die in sin, and our constant desire is once again for sin, not God’s righteousness anymore.

Before the enemy starts playing games with you by saying you have fallen backwards in some area(s) and have now lost all hope for salvation, just know that salvation is very difficult to achieve in the first place, so just ignore them!
Here are some scriptures that show we can lose our salvation after falling backwards, once again living a life of consistent sin, even if it is in just one area that we had previously overcome:

James 2:10-11 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
2 Peter 2:20-22 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud”.
Hebrews 6:4-6 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

I do not want to dwell on scriptures commonly used to support the view that Christians cannot lose salvation as they are mostly taken out of context and misquoted, but I do want to address the most quoted scripture specifically:

John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
If this verse is used to promote the notion that Christians cannot lose their salvation, it demonstrates a misunderstanding of Jesus’ point altogether, as he was not saying people’s actions are above consequences or that salvation could never be lost, he was saying nobody can overpower him personally–there is a huge difference.
The key to understanding the true meaning of this verse, is to separate the truth that God cannot be overpowered, from the theologically inaccurate suggestion that our sinful actions have no impact on whether we attain or retain salvation–there is simply no Biblical support for this concept, but people often get hung up on it.