Believing Is Not Enough

28--How Can I Know If I Am Really Saved?

Did you know that the majority of people who think they are saved are not saved at all? That is a really scary thought! Most of those people would say they believe the Bible and they go to church every week and maybe once upon a time they prayed a prayer to accept Jesus, but that is not enough. Even Satan and demons believe that the Bible is true. The Jesus-hating Pharisees were always parading all their "righteousness" around, but they were not saved. 

Can we really KNOW when we are saved? Absolutely! The Bible gives us some very definite ways that we can know if we are truly saved. 

First of all, a person who is saved has a very acute awareness of the sin in her life. She is painfully aware of how unworthy she is and she hates her sin so much that she repents of it and turns away from it. A lot of people hate sin--they hate everybody else's sin, but not their own. But people who have a true relationship with Jesus hate their own sin more than anything. 

Secondly, a person who is a true Christian is willing to surrender EVERYTHING for the sake of Christ. They are willing to give up all their hopes and dreams and ambitions and even their friends and family for the sake of Christ! Jesus says if we love mother or father or son or daughter or anyone or anything more than we love Him, we are not worthy to be his disciples. Whoa, Nelly! That means that you might have your heart set on going to Harvard or Yale, but if Christ wants you to go to the local Bible College, you'd better listen up. It means that even after you grow up and become an adult, you can't just do whatever you feel like. You may have to give up your fondest dreams and desires. Are you willing to do that?

Finally, the real test of knowing you are truly saved is to evaluate how much you love other people. This is what the Apostle John says in I John 3:14-15 "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life in Him." WOW! If you hate somebody so much that you won't even be around them, so much that you cut them off from you--even if you don't murder them, God says it is murder! But if you are kind and affectionate and loving to everyone, even if they irritate you, that is a supernatural kind of love that can only come from God and it is evidence that you are a child of God. (It would be like a dog loving a cat!)

So these three things will tell you if you are truly saved:  Are you very aware of how awful your sins are and do you hate them so much that you will turn away from them? Do you love Christ more than you love your friends and family and your hopes and dreams? Do you love all the people God has put in your life--your family, your friends, and even people who irritate you? If you answer 'yes' to all those questions, you are certainly saved. 

If you are still not sure, the one thing  you can do is to pray that God will have mercy on you and that he will reveal your sins to you and help you to love Him and everybody else. He will never turn away anyone who comes to Him asking for mercy.