Featured How do you know you are saved?

It makes me sad that someone doesn't understand or know how God is alive and well in our big cities. The fields are ripe for harvest as God brings the world to our doorstep.

 

Are you sure that was the missunderstanding? You do undestand generalizations about any group do not constitue specifics regarding God's working in the lives of individuals?

 

My goodness. Re-read the back and forth. I'm done with this foolishness.

 

You never had a responce where one is oblivious to what one had written for which you had given a responced to?

 

This thread sort of de-railed a bit, it seems, so I'd like to see if any of this has happened for others as it has for me.
How do I know that I am saved?

1) The world hates me ( John 15:18 ) for the sake of the Lord.
2) I have many trials and tribulations in this life ( John 16:33 ).
3) Those tribulations work patience ( Romans 5:3 ), of which I've only recently become far more patient than I ever was in years past.
4) I've grown in knowledge and grace ( 2 Peter 3:18 ). Though far from perfect, I know and understand much more about His word than I did just 5-10 years ago, simply by availing myself of two passages: 1 Peter 2:2 and 2 Timothy 2:15.
5) Friends have made comments that they see a change in me over the years.
6) I've gradually experienced the fruits of the Spirit ( Galatians 5:22-23 ) instead of the works of the flesh ( Galatians 5:19-21 ) over the years since my first believing on Christ during the preaching of His word.
7) I've experienced times when I knew that me doing something for someone was definitely His will ( Philippians 2:13 ).
8) I've believed on His Son ( John 3:16, John 3:36, John 5:24 ), and my hope in Him has never left, but only gotten stronger.
9) Instead of falling back into the world and my faith failing, that faith has only gotten stronger as well. I'm now strongly convinced that I am of the 4th "soil" in the parable of the sower ( Matthew 13:3-9 ), which the Lord revealed the meaning of to His disciples in Matthew 13:18-23. In the past, my fear was that I was of the 3rd "soil", and I wouldn't make it through all my trials. I also now understand the "things" that 1 John 5:13 speaks of.
10) I've found that I can read and ( eventually ) understand the Bible apart from reading commentaries and relying on the teachings of men. This shows the work of the Holy Spirit as Teacher ( 1 John 2:20-27 ). However, this took time and serious study, and I experienced frustration because of my lifelong lack of patience ( that has only gotten better over the years ).
11) I began to experience a growing distaste for the things of the world some years back...even as a believer in my teens and well into my 30's, I watched "action movies" and listened to rock and other styles of music...all that has faded over the decades, to be replaced with a strong love for the Lord and His people and an indifference ( or even a strong distaste at times ) towards my former desires.
12) I've come to see, more and more, the Lord as my personal Deliverer in times of trouble... and I know from past experience, that His promise to deliver me ( Psalms 50:15 ) out of those trials is true.


There are many more evidences that I see, but what comes to mind the most is this:

" Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." ( Hebrews 11:1-3 ).

This tells me that true faith ( the kind that endures ) is the substance, the essence of things hoped for...in this case, I hope for a new world wherein dwells righteousness ( 2 Peter 3:13 )...one where my Saviour is, instead of Him being at the right hand of the Father. Like Abraham, I look for a city founded by God, and not of this world's ways.
It also tells me that my faith is the evidence of things not seen...the working of God in me, and the favor of Almighty God upon me.
The more I realize that He has saved me from my sins and His coming wrath, and to Himself for an eternal relationship with Him, has only made me more confident towards Him and in His promises.

Finally, this tells me that the faith that He gave me ( and the Spirit that it came by ) was the source of my being able to believe and understand His word...that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, they didn't "evolve" from nothing.

How do I know that I am saved?

Not because a pastor "coached me" or convinced me that if I did something biblical, that it would "settle it" forever.
But because something happened to me during the preaching of His word in 1978, and that "Someone" has never let go of me since then.

He truly is the best Friend anyone could ever have.
If He can save a wretch of a mess like me, constantly disobeying Him and then seeing my sins against Him and failures to obey Him time and again... and coming back to Him in repentance, over and over, He can save anyone.

That's how I know that I am saved.
Because He did it, not me.

 

1 John 5:11 - And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

 

I was reading this as recently as this morning, and it came to me that the "things" spoken of in verse 13, are the things developed prior to John being inspired to write verse 13.
Here are some of them:

1) " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." ( 1 John 4:15 ).

2) " If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also." ( 1 John 4:20-21 ).

3) " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." ( 1 John 5:1 )

4) " For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith.
5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? " ( 1 John 5:4-5 )

5) " This is he that came by water and blood, [even] Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. 7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." ( 1 John 5:6-8 )


6) " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that hath the Son hath life; [and] he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." ( 1 John 5:10-12 ).

 

I was first convinced of the truth of the scriptures by the preaching of the Word and the conviction of my sins by the Holy Spirit. The way I know I'm saved is because I believe in Christ Jesus and His word and His word tells me I'm saved because I have confessed Jesus as my Savior. That He is the Son of God who gave Him Self for me.
MB

 

Trusting a work? Trosting what you did? (Romans 10:9-10 NASB)

 

What was Bundy born as, if you don't mind the question?

 

Ha!ha!

You sound like the French enlightenment.

Do you say Cain was a baby? Adam was never a baby. What about Judas?

Do you call that an answer? It's not the environment.

 

Still dancing around?

 

Adam was never a baby yet he sinned. He had a perfect environment. Judas Iscariot knew Jesus face-to-face yet he sinned. It must be a bad heart. Man is born a sinner.

 

Amen.

" For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:" ( Matthew 15:20 ).

" Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2 Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." ( Psalms 58:3 ).

 

Thanks for posting that Scripture about the heart!

 

I know I am saved because I had many close encounters with God in my teens, started by one big one that changed my life and much of my behavior. I asked for wisdom as The Bible says to do, and God granted me that in the form of telling me to change my behavior when interacting with others.
I suppose for those who believe you can lose your salvation, it's more complicated.

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