Our personality and our inheritance are both at stake. If we live our life in the flesh, yielding to the demands of our body, seeking our own security, pleasure, and accomplishments, we will suffer enormous loss in the Day of Christ.

The common definition of salvation, which is that salvation is a ticket to Heaven when we die, is a major conceptual problem. If such were the case, if salvation were a ticket to Heaven, being saved as by fire would not be so bad after all. It would mean merely that, while we did not receive the crown of royal authority, we still would go to Paradise. And since eternal residence in Paradise or Heaven is the primary goal there has been no great loss. Instead of a five-story mansion we will have a two-story mansion.

This kind of fleshly guesswork underlies the teaching that no matter how a Christian lives he need not worry overmuch because he still will be "saved"—even if it is by fire.

The truth is, salvation is not a ticket to Paradise. The program of salvation moves us from Satan to God, not from earth to Heaven.

To be saved as by fire is to have most of our personality, as well as our inheritance, burned away so we enter the Kingdom of God as a naked spirit. It is an awesome loss, an incredible disaster—perhaps an eternal shame.

The scriptural example is Lot. Lot was saved as by fire. If we compare the destiny of Lot (who brought forth the tribes of Moab and Ammon—an abomination to the Lord) with the inheritance of Abraham, we can glean a very limited understanding of the terrible loss we incur when we are saved by passing through the flames.

Jesus advised us to possess our souls.

In your patience possess ye your souls (Luke 21:19).

When we give way to the fleshly appetites and pleasures of life in the world, we lose control of our souls. Instead of being changed into the image of Christ, that to which we have been predestined, we remain spiritually weak, self-centered, ignorant of the Lord and His ways. We do not learn to lean on the Lord or to be obedient to Him in all matters, thus not mastering the principal lessons life on earth is designed to teach us.

In the Day of Judgment, if the Lord judges us worthy of the Kingdom, the corruption that has been formed in our personality will be removed from us, leaving us a naked spirit. In that Day we will be without our original personality and without inheritance in the Kingdom. This is what it means to be saved by fire.

A wise saint will, from time to time, ask the Lord to reveal to him the true nature of the kind of life he is building and the quality of the work he is performing. (from A Study Guide for the Book of First Corinthians)