How Can I be Sure I Am Saved

I am always amazed but no longer surprised by the number of Christians who ask me "How do you know if you are saved?" There was a time I would have given the simple answer that if they had called on the name of Jesus as Lord and Saviour then they are saved. But I quickly realized that they are missing the knowledge of what salvation looks like and what it looks like to be a child of God. So I have modified my answer.

To belong to the King of kings is to be citizens of a different country, a country that is not cannot be known by the citizens of this world. This world has become a principality of a false princve, one who came to steal, kill, and destroy. The King's Kingdom is based of principles that are much higher than the principles of this world. Many terms and words are similar but what they convey is something so much more.

Accepting Jesus as King means that we are given eyes to see the unseen and a mind to understand according to Father's heart. That means our perspective of this world and life in general is different. It changes. Everything of the Kingdom is planted in us as seeds so that we grow in our revelatory knowledge and our actions follow.

Many mistake that the commands of Jesus are like the Law of Moses, an external thing that we learn to obey. Instead those commands are like the blueprint of what a Kingdom citizen looks like and the King even set the example for us. The commands are actually written into our DNA so now it is natural for us to be like Jesus and for the immature not to be like him. The immature can decide to grow up but they can also decide to live by the principles of the principality instead. It is a matter of surrendering our old habits, old perspectives, old actions and giving prominence to the new. Unfortunately the people who are suppose to teach this new reality are still focused on the new Old Testament; still teaching people to try to conform to a law that we cannot do. 

The short answer is, if you still see life the same way before you started attending church you probably have yet to surrender to the King. You may like some of the stuff you see but not enough to surrender your life. 

However, if everything has changed since you called on Jesus, you love differently, you forgive easily, your compassion moves you to action, life has become a generous sacrifice, joy sustains you, peace constantly steadies you, you feel no need to judge, you make allowances for the Lord to do stuff and you live to see others discover the Kingdom and the King, you can be certain that you have the blessing of salvation. 

It is nothing you can earn or buy but it is a relationship that never leaves us the same and changes absolutely everything.

Why Are You So Different From Everyone Else?

There are some Bible verses that have an ability to shift our understanding so dramatically that we are unable to see life in the same manner ever again. Or, those same verses can blend in with all the other verses as we read them over again and again with no affect. It really depends on our expectations and attitude as we approach the Word of Yahweh. Let's pick Galatians 2:20 as an example:

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Now either that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up or it didn't. It either just reminded you how different you are from everyone else or it didn't. It either put all your problems in perspective or it didn't. Christianity is not a religion like other religions. We are not trying to achieve some goal or some point of happiness or bliss. We have received everything we need in Jesus and the only thing that is happening is that we are growing into that relationship.

What other religion declares that all it's subscribers are dead, no longer living? What other religion declares that all of it's followers are possessed and only have life because it is shared with them by the one who possesses them? What other religion declares that the object of worship gave up his life so those who believed would gain a life eternal through him?

Christianity is not a code to live by, a set of rules or regulations, or a philosophy to understand. Christianity is the death of one thing and the birth of another. It is the death of all we were, a cutting off, a casting out, a separation from the old so that we can become the new, reborn, clothed anew, changed for eternity by the one who laid down his life so we could gain it all. Christianity is about dying in what we were and now living something entirely new in Jesus.

We have no life outside of Jesus. His desire has always been obedience to Father and so now that has become our desire because we live in him. What is important to him is important to us. We possess his mind and his heart because we are possessed by him. We voluntarily gave up our old life to gain this new one and now everything is new, everything has been changed, and we will never be like we were ever again.

So yes, some Bible verses open our eyes in a dramatic way to understand what has transpired with the surrender of our life. Now we are in the deep fellowship that Father has desired to have with us from the beginning. We cannot live like those who belong to this world because we now have the mind, the perspective of Jesus Christ. We have been crucified with Jesus. We no longer live but Christ lives in us. The life we live in these bodies we live by faith in the Son of God. We have been changed, transformed. We will never be like we were ever again.