HOW TO KNOW FOR SURE THAT YOU ARE SAVED
How can we know for sure that we are saved? This is an important question. Let’s look at some evidences of being saved. When we accept Jesus as our Savior several changes occur. In order for us to accept Jesus as Savior the Holy Spirit must draw us to the need to get saved. The Word of God tells us, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”Rom.3:10-11 We do not desire nor seek to have our sins forgiven. The Holy Spirit must bring our need to our attention. Then and only then can we know that we must ask Jesus to save us. Jesus in John 6:44 said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.” God the Father must use the Holy Spirit to draw us to Jesus. Before God draws us we have no interest in coming to Jesus for salvation. The fact that we are concerned about being saved is direct proof that God has drawn us. When we accept God’s invitation to be saved the Holy Spirit comes inside of us immediately and we are sealed. Eph.1:13reads, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” The presence of the Holy Spirit within us provides two things that tell us we are saved. Some of us actually notice the Holy Spirit coming inside of us when we are saved. Not all of us notice this, but all of us after getting saved will be convicted by the Holy Spirit when we sin. This did not happen to us prior to getting saved. Before we came to Jesus to get saved, we could commit sin and have no problems with it. It was our natural way of living. Once we are saved we can no longer sin and not be bothered by it. After salvation the Holy Spirit will convict us of having done wrong when we sin. If the feeling of conviction hits us when we sin, then we can be assured that we did get saved.
There is more. When we get saved we are changed and are a new person in Christ. II Cor.5:17 tells us, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” We are a new creature created in Christ Jesus when we get saved. Eph.2:10says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” When we get saved we will have an inward desire to do those things that please God. We will not want to sin. This does not happen in us if we are not saved. If we desire to please God, then we have been saved. If our desires are to do sinful things and we can do them without being bothered by them, then we are not saved.
Having accepted Jesus as our Savior, we will then have a desire to see others get saved. This is part of our new found desire to do the things that please God. Also, we have come to believe that we must get saved to get to heaven. If we desire that others would get saved, we are saved. Those who are not saved will never be concerned for others. If we are not saved, the only person we will be concerned about is ourselves. There are a few other things that need to be said.
Some think that it is necessary to spend much time agonizing over our sinful state before we can get God to save us. This is a lie. If we desire to get saved, the very moment we ask God to save us we are saved. Salvation occurs instantly. Also, some think we need to have some sort of emotional experience. This is also false. Some of us will have an emotional experience as a result of getting saved and some of us will not. An emotional experience is not necessary to get saved. God does the saving, not us. There are also no necessary feelings that we need to have. We are each different individuals, some of us have more feelings than others. Some of us will have much feeling and others will have none. No special feelings are necessary to get saved. Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If we have sincerely called on the Lord Jesus to save us, we are saved. God cannot lie and He will not lie. Also, Jesus said in John 6:37, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” Jesus guarantees that anyone who comes to Him to get saved will be saved. We must put our trust in Jesus, and not some other person or thing.
Putting our trust in some speaker or some church will not save us. Our trust must be put in the finished work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. Only faith in Jesus will give us salvation. I Tim.2:5 explains, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Also in Acts 4:12 Peters tells the Jewish leaders about Jesus that, “Neither is their salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Our trust must be in Jesus and Jesus only. If our trust is in Jesus we are saved and there are some other things we need to know.
After we get saved, the devil wants very badly to get us to doubt our salvation. Let’s look at some truths that we can be assured of. First, the type of life that Jesus gives us is eternal life. Jesus tells us in John 3:15-16, “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Once we are saved we have everlasting life. This means that we cannot perish or die. If we were to die then our life would not be everlasting. When we leave this world we will be with Jesus forever. Jesus also tells us in John 10:27-29, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” Once we are saved Jesus has His hand around us and God the Father has His hand around us. There is no one that can remove us from the hand of God, including ourselves. No human being or any other being can remove us from the hand of God. There are some more truths like this.
When we accept Jesus as our Savior we become a child of God. We are born immediately into God’s family. John 1:12reads, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Also Romans 8:14-16 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” When we get saved we gain adoption into the family of God. We are children of God. God the Father is our Father. Family is something that never changes. When we are born we are the child of our parents. No matter what we do we will always have the same parents. Once we become children of God we will always be God’s child. There is still more.
When we get saved we are baptized or immersed into the body of Jesus. In Romans 6:4-5 we learn, “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” We become a part of Jesus when we are saved. In order for us to lose our salvation Jesus would have to die again. Jesus is God. He is never going to die. Therefore, we also will never die. When we leave this world we will be with Him forever. Finally we will eventually receive a new body that will never die that will be just like Jesus. In I John 3:2 we read, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” The only way that we would ever be able to look upon the infinite glory of Jesus is to become just like Him. Just as Jesus body will never die so also our new body will never die. With all of these guarantees we can be certain that we will never lose our salvation. Our salvation is totally dependent upon the Savior and in zero dependence on us. All praises be to God for what He has done for us.