Are you really saved?
What I mean is, are you safe and secure in your relationship with Jesus Christ? Are you sure?
What do you mean you don’t like those questions? OK, I’ll ask another one instead.
If you leave your house to run some errands, and another driver runs a red light and takes you out – are you 100% convinced of what will happen to you after that?
There is nothing in this life anyone can ask you that is more important. Absolutely nothing. No other answer you respond with carries more weight and consequence. Not even one.
Let’s get something squared away: you are going to die. Your life as you know it now will end.
Yeah, look in the mirror. I’m talking to YOU!
Have you honestly thought about this? All your goals, all your dreams, all your achievements, everything you have accumulated, all your investments and properties, all your revenue streams, all your connections to friends and family, all your kudos and compliments, all your figures on your personal financial statement, all your facelifts and botox regimens and fitness routines – – it’s all going to come to a hard and unexpected stop at some point.
You’re going to be six feet under.
None of what you once thought mattered is going to count anymore. You’ll be very alone.
You’re going to rot. You’ll stink. Your body will decompose and become little putrid pools. You’ll be pushing daisies like myriads of folks have done before you. Traffic is going to drive right on by and never know you’re there. It won’t be long till most folks simply forget about you.
Maybe someone will save your obituary announcement in their scrapbook. Maybe a friend will stick a small wooden cross in the ground where you left this life.
That’s just the way it is.
I don’t care who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or how you’ve done it. I could give a rat’s patootie what degrees you have, what books you’ve written or read, where you’ve worked, how much you make, or what circles you run in. It means nothing what others think of you or why they think it.
It’s all going to come to a screeching halt. You have an appointment with the great unknown. I guarantee that.
Yep. You’re going to die.
Sorry for being so blunt here, but hey – I’m talking to myself too! A day is coming when everything ends in this life, and we head into the next one.
And none of us know when that is.
But the scary truth is plenty of people will die with the wrong assumptions. Plenty of folks will slip into the next life completely unprepared for what it holds.
One of the most fearful parts of God’s Word is Matthew 7:21-23, and it paints a grim picture.
Here are the high points:
First, it says many will find out too late they were not saved – that means they did not have a right relationship with Jesus Christ. They are destined for hell and eternal torment. In other words, they focused on all the wrong things while they walked this earth. They were fooled, and their priorities were wacked.
Second, it’s not a “few,” and it’s not “some.” It’s “many.” In the end, EVERYONE will face their Lord and Creator, and the proportion of those who will discover too late that they miscalculated the most important issue of all will be high.
Third, this group called “many” had – by outward appearances anyways – a decent checklist while they were still alive on planet Earth. According to verse 21, they had said things that sounded right. Verse 22 suggests they had also done things that seemed to put them in good standing. Folks thought well of them. They appeared to be good people because they passed the ‘sniff test.’
But the problem is clear in verse 23. This passage says you can say certain things and do certain things, but in the end, it’s all just Fool’s Gold. Your choices must still be evaluated by God’s standard – not your standards, or the standards of your pastor, your church, your family, your culture, your friends, or the ever-changing, fickle, and outrageously corrupt media.
In the end, God is the final authority. He’ll know if your ‘faith’ was the real deal. And as this passage shows, “many” will find out too late theirs wasn’t. They had believed a lie instead.
A big takeaway from Matthew 7:21-23 is this: don’t take salvation for granted. It’s not enough to be ‘spiritual’ or to ‘live a good life.’ It’s a miscalculation of indescribable eternal consequence to think you can do anything to put yourself in a proper standing before God.
That’s why you need to welcome every opportunity that tests the sincerity and maturity of your faith (James 1:2-4). In fact, this should be a conscious effort, according to 2 Corinthians 13:5. We should continually test whether we are living and operating in genuine faith. A real faith holds the very highest worth.
That means we shouldn’t blindly trust our pastors or our teachers. We shouldn’t trust anyone who posts insightful things on Facebook or in articles and says things we think we need to hear.
We definitely shouldn’t trust popular culture. It’s wrong pretty much every time. And all the ‘spiritual journeys’ of pop stars, various religious figures, new age leaders, and so-called ‘enlightened’ personalities are guaranteed to steer you away from the truth rather than to it.
In the end, we all need to do our own homework. We need to be personally responsible. We will all face God alone someday (Philippians 2:10-11; Revelation 20:12), and we won’t be able to sidestep any individual accountability. We all need to study the Bible for ourselves to see if our conclusions are the right ones (Acts 17:11).
As one commentator puts it, “Subject yourselves to the scrutiny of your own conscience.” God gave us our conscience as a guard. It is supernaturally wired to point us TO the truth about God and who He is (Romans 1:19-20). It also prompts us if our assumptions are off-base or if we take a wrong turn somewhere. You know what I mean. You have a conscience. Heed it.
If you’re still with me here – – then hang with me a bit longer. I need to be super blunt. Yes, it’s that important.
You’re not saved simply because you prayed a particular set of words. As Matthew 7:21-23 explicitly states, “saying” certain things doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’re saved.
Furthermore, you’re not saved because you “gave your heart to Christ.” Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to think this way. There is no effort or action on our part which contributes in any way to the salvation transaction.
We cannot “give” God anything, which, in turn, qualifies us for righteousness. A true saving faith is based on what Jesus gives US, and that is His gift of eternal life (Ephesians 2:8-9).
You’re also not saved because you “confessed” your sins and you “asked the Lord to forgive you.” In 1 John 1:9, it’s made clear that confession of this sort is for true believers who are struggling with sin. Properly confessing sin and acknowledging Christ’s full payment for that sin are instructions for restoring proper fellowship with our Lord and Savior.
Lastly, you’re not saved because you “asked Jesus Christ to come into your heart.” This is a very popular prescription, and I fear it has confused and misled many.
You’re not saved because you raised your hand when the pastor appealed for you to do that. You’re not in good standing before God because you filled out a card, came down to the front of the church, or got ‘baptized.’ You are not in a right relationship with God because you ‘spoke in tongues,’ saw someone ‘healed,’ fell to the ground in a fit of seizures, had a euphoric experience, or laughed till you barfed.
Again – the Bible does not instruct us to gain salvation any of these ways. Instead, the Bible tells us that we need to trust fully in the shed blood of Jesus Christ and in His substitutionary death on our behalf (Ephesians 1:7).
You see, we are all born into a state of sin (Romans 3:23), and that means we deserve physical and spiritual death (Romans 6:23). But, if we wholly believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, if we confess that He died to pay the price for our sins, and we acknowledge that God raised Him from the dead, then we are truly saved (Romans 10:9).
It’s only at that point that our bodies become the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. This is the RESULT of salvation – but believing in Jesus Christ and trusting in His work on the cross precedes that condition.
I’ve probably rattled some of you by this point. Truth has a way of doing that. Others of you are angry because I’ve just made hamburger with your sacred cows. I really don’t care. I am going to answer to God just as each of you will do – – so I’m going to do and say what’s right.
Some people may write me and criticize me. I’ve seen enough of that so far that I can guess the sort of folks that will do that. Biblical truth has rubbed you the wrong way before. I imagine you’ll think I’ve stated some heresies here.
But bear with me – – I’m almost done.
When the jailer observed the examples of Paul and Silas, he asked them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”
The jailer wasn’t told to “surrender his life to Christ,” “come down to the front,” “promise to serve Christ,” “make Jesus Lord of his life,” or “just allow Jesus to touch him.” The jailer didn’t flop around on the ground or writhe in ecstatic convulsion. He didn’t burble and mutter incoherently, and his eyes didn’t roll back in his skull.
When the jailer’s own coping skills failed, Paul and Silas told him to “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved…” So, he did – and he was!
The jailer consciously and clearly listened to “the word of the Lord” (Acts 16:32), and he believed what he was told. He “believed in the Lord Jesus.”
The thief on the cross – the ‘good’ thief – did the same thing. He had a faulty personal resume – but he had also gained a right view of Jesus Christ.
Between the way he put the other ‘bad’ thief in his place by asking him, “Don’t you fear God?” and the way he implored, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42), the ‘good’ thief showed more faith than many ‘upright’ personalities in Scripture.
In a most remarkable and unfathomable moment, the ‘good’ thief looked beyond the way things appeared to be to what he knew them to be instead. And Jesus granted him salvation for his faith that was expressed in that belief.
Both the jailer and the ‘good’ thief were saved because they each believed IN Jesus Christ. They each believed Jesus Christ IS who He said He IS. Their individual dilemmas didn’t cloud a right display of faith.
I’ll finish up here by making it personal.
I believe I’m a born-again Christian and, therefore, a secure child of God. I don’t say that because I’m able to point to a specific time where I prayed a prescriptive prayer.
While I can indeed do that, my salvation isn’t contingent on the fact that I strung some key words and phrases together in the right order. I’m not saved because I asked Jesus to “come into my heart and forgive my sins.”
Much more importantly instead, I am fully and consciously convinced that Jesus is the Christ, the only Son of God. I believe with all my heart that He miraculously came to Earth in the form of a man (Philippians 2:5-7), lived a sinless life, and paid the full price for all my sins when He was sacrificed on the cross as the substitutionary Lamb of God (John 1:29).
I believe that He rose from the dead, and He’s coming back to supernaturally receive me to Himself, and to deliver me from His wrath which is forthcoming on an unrepentant world (1 Thess. 1:10). Furthermore, I believe God chose to redeem me before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1:4), and I believe no element of His salvation blueprint was ever “Plan B.”
I believe that God, by His grace, gave me the faith to believe every single part of what I’ve just said. And so – I chose to believe in Him because He first chose me in His great love (I John 4:19).
I believe there is nothing I can contribute to any part of this salvation transaction that would have improved my odds. I cannot give anything, do anything, or say anything to merit myself or to gain the inside track.
The Bible makes the clear case that Jesus did it all. He didn’t depend on any action or motive on my part to save me.
If you cannot connect with what I’ve stated here, then it’s urgent that you deeply evaluate and get right with God. Our time on Earth is short. Perhaps YOUR time on Earth is much shorter.
Don’t wait any longer. NOW is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). Repent. Turn away from your sins and believe in Jesus Christ. Follow Him. He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). There is NO other path to salvation.
There is no other way you can be saved.
Did you know that, according to a July 2021 study, 51% of Christian respondents to a poll believe in intelligent life on other planets? That percentage significantly rises with younger Christians. Most young Christians today believe in UFOs, aliens, Bigfoot, and all other sorts of ‘otherworldly’ phenomena no differently than their unsaved peers do.