The Faith We Hold: Once Saved, Always Saved—Or Not? (The Sacred Territory Series: Seven books. One journey. One Savior.)
About
He once taught others to trust God. Then he buried his daughter—and walked away.
Michael Reeves was a devoted husband, father, and respected construction superintendent whose faith shaped nearly every part of his life. After the unexpected death of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Emily, the answers he once offered others no longer withstand the questions he cannot stop asking. Grief strains his marriage, isolates him from friends, and eventually leads him to reject Christianity itself.
His departure unsettles two former coworkers. Thomas Bennett believes Christ preserves everyone who truly belongs to Him. Daniel Mercer believes a genuine believer can deliberately abandon the faith. Both take Scripture seriously. Neither is prepared for the difference between discussing apostasy and sitting across the table from someone they love.
As friendship brings the three men together again, Michael refuses to become an illustration in either man’s argument. Before he can decide what happened to his salvation, he must confront a more fundamental question: did Jesus Christ actually rise from the dead?
The search takes him beyond theological explanations and into the life he has withdrawn from: a wife whose continued faith has not spared her anger, a son whose grief has gone largely unheard, a church capable of both kindness and harm, and memories of a daughter whose life was larger than the fact that it ended.
The Faith We Hold is a contemporary Christian novel about assurance, perseverance, doubt, grief, and the costly work of reconciliation. Bill Riggs gives both sides of “once saved, always saved” a serious hearing without turning one man’s suffering into a verdict or offering an easy explanation for loss.
For readers drawn to honest questions, imperfect believers, and hope that does not ask sorrow to disappear, this is a story about what it means to trust Christ when having the right answers is no longer enough.