Saving faith

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

2 Corinthians 13:5

I grew up in and out of ‘church’. I was saved as a child and told I was going to Heaven. It was a sure thing. Guaranteed. No question about it. I said the prayer, understood that Jesus was God’s son.

But did that save me?

Scripture tells us…

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.  But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. John 2:23-25

Many believed but He did not entrust himself to them.

Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue;  for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. John 12:42-43

Many believed …but they did not confess it…for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

Does believing in Christ make you one of His? Does it save your soul? I don’t believe so.

But I believe…many might say. Or I’m a Christian because I said the sinner’s prayer. Or my faith is real…or…or…or… Whatever your conviction, however you came to your faith, to your belief in Jesus, however deep or real that faith may be…can it hurt to make sure?

Have you ever asked yourself how many people may be in hell that believed they were saved? How many people may have perished while living out their religion certain they would stand in Heaven when they died? How many people that claimed belief in Christ, that were assured of their salvation by their ‘church’, by their preacher, did not reach Heaven when their time on earth was over? Did they believe in vain?

There’s a song that I have listened to many times about someone that stood at the gates of Heaven. This person asks over and over ‘please check the books again’ because they thought there name was there.

They thought there name was there.

Thought.

How sad it would be to live a life believing your salvation was sure only to be wrong when you died.

I have met many people that lived very religious lives. They valued their God, but was it the God of Scripture? They believed in Jesus, but was their Jesus the Jesus Scripture tells us of? It’s easy for our human minds to grab onto what we believe Jesus to be. It’s easy for us to get ‘saved’ when being saved means praying a prayer and continuing with our lives. But are they really saved?

But I believe in Jesus…many of them would have said.

Great.

Wonderful.

That’s the first step. But have you taken the third and the hundredth? Do you love Christ more than the things of the world?

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.  For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?  Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,  saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’  Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?  And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:25-35

That last line pretty much sums everything up…any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

You can’t be a disciple…can’t belong to Christ…unless you renounce everything.

If you don’t love Christ more than anything else…you can’t belong to Him.

Many, many people think they are saved but they love the world and the things in it above all else. They put more stock in what other people think then they do in what Christ thinks and wants.

They follow the world while professing to follow Christ.

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Matthew 15:7-9

Scripture tells us to test ourselves to make sure we are in the faith.

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 2 Corinthians 13:5

Not the faith where we confess with our lips and our hearts are far from Christ but the kind of saving faith where our salvation is secure, where our names truly are written in the book of life. The kind of faith where Christ is our everything.

1 John is written so that we can know if we have true saving faith.

 

These things I write to you, that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God. 1 John 5:13