Throughout the writings of the apostle Paul, he stressed the importance of putting on Christ. Just claiming to be a Christian was not enough in the first century, nor today. To be acceptable to the Lord, one has to continue in the apostles' doctrine and live the Christian life.
A person gets into the Lord by baptism, for we read in Galatians 3:27, "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" In Ephesian 2:10, Christians are called God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, and also in Colossians 3:10, we are told to put on a new man, after the image of him that created man. Time after time the emphasis is placed on the fact that one must be in Christ to be acceptable to God. Jesus explained the impossibility of being acceptable to the Father without first accepting Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. "
The apostle Paul also placed a great deal of concern on how we as Christian~ must live our lives in such a way as is pleasing to God. Weight is given in the writings of all the New Testament on living acceptably before God and not returning to the sinful lifestyle we had before we were baptized into Jesus Christ. Paul, in fact, wrote about how if he, himself was not careful he could be lost for all eternity even though he was a that time a preacher of righteousness (1 Corinthians 9: 27). To the inspired writers of the New Testament there was no such thing as the false doctrine of once saved always saved. These writers understood the need for continued obedience to God in order to remail saved, or walking in the light as John puts it in 1 John 1:7. Not only must we put on the Lord to be saved but we must stay in the Lord to be saved. It is true that no one, or no thing, can take a saved person away from God, but my friends it is true that we can leave of our own free will! God does not hold anyone against their will that is what being free willed being is ail about. God wants us to abide in Him and He in us, but He will only do that through our willing obedience to His will. Have you put on the Lord and are not still in the Lord?