How can I know if I am saved?
A number of times people have confessed to me they struggle with assurance. This makes me think this struggle might be more common than we think. It is something even true believers struggle with from time to time.
The one thing you can be sure of is that a believer cannot lose their salvation. In John 6:37 our Lord says: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” The true believer cannot lose their salvation: You have done nothing to deserve it; You have done nothing to acquire it; It is a unmerited gift of God’s grace. Ephesians 2:8 says “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
Rest assured if you were truly saved, that salvation will give you eternal life!
So the question is not: Can I lose my salvation? You can’t! The
question is: Is my salvation real? Am I truly saved or not? That is the
question that this study seeks to answer: How can I know if I am saved? To
answer that, you need to ask yourself 3 probing questions:
1. What do you love?
The true believer is a changed person. By God’s grace you have found eternal life, but you have also found new desires. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” You are no longer the same, and therefore what you desire is no longer the same. You are a new creation, the old things has passed away. Is that true of you?
I am not saying you are already perfect! We never reach perfection in this life. But our desires are now in accordance to what Paul says in Ephesians 4:22-24 “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
There is an longing to become more holy. A constant drive to die to sin; A constant desire to please God in all. While we will fail at times, there is a desire to stand up and try again. You hate your sin and to fight to overcome it constantly. You have new affection, you love the things of God, you hate the things of the world. It’s not perfection, but it is direction! That’s the sign of true faith
Here’s a few things true believer’s love:
a. Believers
love the Lord
The greatest commandment according to is Matthew 22:37-38 is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Do you truly love the Lord, with all your heart, soul and mind? Not perfection but direction! Do you love the Lord?
b. Believers
love the Word
Psalm 119:103-105 says “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Though Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I have every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Even if the Word of God corrects you and even if it is at times difficult to obey it, the believer delights in the Word of the Lord. You look forward to study it, you meditate on it, and seek to obey it. Do you love God’s Word?
c. Believers
love fellow believers
In 1 John 4:20 we read: “If anyone says ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” Our love for the fellow believers is a sign that we love God, John says. This echo’s what Jesus says in John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” It does not mean we do not at times disagree with believers, but we should still love them.
In Galatians 2:11-14 Paul tell us that he disagreed greatly with Peter and rebuked him. Yet moments before in verses 8 and 9 he calls Peter a man called by God and a ‘Pillar’ of the faith. Similarly when speaking about Paul, Peter says his letters are ‘wisdom’ and ‘Scripture’. There are also many tell tale signs that Peter not only read Paul’s letters, but I suspect had them in mind as he write in his own letters
Love for the fellow believers: even if you disagree on non-fundamentals; even if they rebuke you, is that true of you? Because that is a sign of a true believers, we are united with one another in Christ.
d. Believers
love the church service
There is no such a thing as a true believer who refuses to go to church. Hebrews 10:25 describe neglecting the meeting together a bad habit that does not belong in a Christian. Even if our lives is in danger, as it was with the believers in Acts 1:13-14, they came together in the upper room on the Lord’s day to worship together.
Why is the meeting together important? Because Jesus says in Matthew 18:20 “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am among them.” There is a particular where our Lord is present in our meeting together. So that we do not just have fellowship with one another, but also with our Lord.
The true believer looks forward to Sunday: To hear and meditate on His Word; to worship our worthy God; to meet with the saints.
e. Believers
love the things of God
1 Peter 4:1-2 says “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of his time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” He is speaking to suffering Christians, so whatever your circumstances may be, this applies to you also: Those truly united to Christ fights sin; those truly united to Christ do God’s will! Jesus warns of the same thing in Mattew 7:21: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
All of the things I mentioned are
signs that your faith is true. We are not saved by good works, but all who are
saved will do good works. Believers hate
their sin; Believers loves the ways of our Lord. It is not perfection, it is about direction! Ephesians
2:10 “For we’re his workmanship, created in CJ for good works, which Gd
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Our good works is proof we are truly saved What
is your desires and deed saying about your faith? The believer, Colossians 3:1-2 says, is now “raised
with Christ”, so he “seeks the things that are above” and “not
the thing that are on earth.” What
you love tells if your faith is real, or not.
2. Are
you humble?
The believer is a sinner saved by grace, and so he can never be proud. Even now as a believer, you are still a sinner: You fight sin, but it still remains. Again, it is not perfection, but direction!
Paul tells of his experience of this Romans 7:15. “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” We will never be perfect in this life, we fall short of the glory of God, at all times. We constantly fight sin and seek righteousness! Our sinful origins and the sinful actions that remains should prevent us of being proud.
The believers attitude must be like David’s in Psalm 51:1-3 “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” The believer knows: he’s a sinner & all we have is God’s undeserved grace, he knows the truth of Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This grace of God must humble the believer. John 3:16 is a well known verse, but it must humble you when you read: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” The cost of your sin; the great love of God! How could you be proud? How could you not be humble? With Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:15 we must humbly say: “Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!”
3. Are
you obedient?
True believers seeks to do God’s will! We are not perfect; fall short of the glory of God! But the believer fights against sin; The believer never stop desiring amd working to obey the will of God. It is the direction, it is not perfection.
1 John 2:4 “Whoever says ‘I know Him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Yes, we fail, but have sorrow & repentance when we fail to do His will. Jesus says in John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus is more adamant in John 14:23-24a, saying “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, & my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”
You are not sinless, you are still far from perfect, but the believer fights sin, confess sin, as forgiveness for sin, and keep fighting sin. Galatians 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
But also the believer does God’s will. James 4:7-8 says “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
The two go hand in hand, we fight sin, and we seek to do righteousness. When we fail we repent, stand up, strive and fight again until our dying day. Is that true of you?
We are sinners living in a sinful
world, but the believer seeks to glorify God. The believer loves the things of
God. He fight and hate the sin that remains. He confesses, he repents, he
returns to ways of the Lord. Do you love
the Lord and His ways and His things? Are
you still humbled by your sin and He’s undeserved grace towards you? Do you
seek to obey the Lord & do you fight against your sin? These are the signs
of true faith
As a footnote let met add that trials are a good test of
faith.
Does trials drive you closer to the Lord, or does trials drive you from the Lord? Sometimes it takes time to show itself, but does it bring you closer or drive you further from God?
In the beginning trials might overwhelm you, even irritate or anger you. That is sinful, but not unforgivable! But if trials and tribulations turn you away from the Lord, your faith is not true. If it makes you distrust the Lord, or even worse hate the Lord, it is a lie.
James 1:2-4 says “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” What James is saying is that trials and tribulations is the ultimate test of your faith. If you stand, your faith is true; If you fall, your faith is a lie.
Therefore, count trials a joy Psalm 119:71 says “It is
good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” In
Romans 5:3-5 Paul says “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, and hope does not put us
to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who has been given to us.”
The question about your faith is important. If you have faith, you cannot lose it! Therefore, make sure you have it. Because we are saved by faith alone, in Christ alone, by the grace of God alone. Without that, you cannot be saved. Thank God for His inexplicable grace towards every believer everywhere!