Question:
Dear Greg,
How
can I be sure I am saved? When our
preacher offers an invitation at the end of the service, he always reminds us
that whenever Christ returns one day there will be those to whom he says, “I
never knew you”. Thus, our pastor
says, “be sure you are saved”. Who
are these people? I accepted Christ
and was baptized when I was 14 years old. I’ve
always believed that you are saved by grace through faith.
However, his comments always make me question my salvation and wonder
what I must do to not be one of those people Christ “never knew”.
Deborah
Answer: Dear Deborah,
How
can you be sure? It depends on what
you mean by “sure”. In the
beginning of Christianity Christians were called “believers”.
We are people of faith. Not
blind faith, but faith nonetheless. We cannot measure or weigh God.
We don’t touch him—we can’t use the tools of human science when it
comes to things of God. We can be
humanly sure of something when it meets our tests of truth—when we can
observe, measure, test, touch, see, smell, etc.
Being
sure spiritually is not the same as being sure physically.
The reason we are sure is because we trust Christ.
We believe that he is sufficient for our salvation—that he has done
what we cannot do. That’s why we
can be sure—because of him. If,
however, we start thinking that any part of our salvation is up to us, then we
will start to doubt--for good reason. We
are all sinners, we are all imperfect, and we continually, even as Christians,
fall short of the glory of God. That’s
our miserable condition as long as we are in this flesh!
I
don’t know what your pastor may be saying, or what his intent is—but those
who cast doubt on our personal relationship with God are often not proclaiming
the gospel. We need to re-examine
ourselves, we need to renew our relationship with God and we need to re-commit
our lives to Jesus. However, that
doesn’t mean that we are not saved. Hope
this helps Deborah. May you rest in
Jesus, go to him; cast your burden on him. He
is our Lord and our Savior.
In
Christ,