A friend of mine stopped by yesterday a couple of hours before I went to school. The guy lives right next door to me. He has been to church with me a few times and even spoke to me that he was saved.
He had something on his mind. He said that he goes to sleep at night wondering what would happen if he died. He asked what happens in the rapture. We spend about an hour and a half going over things he was unsure of. This was going in a great direction. He seemed to understand who God was and what the Bible said about and more importantly what he said in the Bible. Until I asked a question...
"Who is Jesus?"
His response...
"A guy who died so that we could go to heaven."
That prompted me to ask the question of "what do you know about Him?"
He died on a cross. That was his answer. Now some people might say ty is correct. I am not content with it though. There is more.
When Jesus died on that cross it was not the sign for the ticket punching to begin. It meant we were just getting started. Jesus didn't only die so when we died we could go to heaven. He died for us to be able to have personal, passionate, living relationship. Salvation is not just heaven. Salvation is the freedom to go and talk with God anytime.
Did you know that at one time people could not do that? Yeah it's true. At one time we had to go find a holy man (priest) to go talk to God. Even then he could only talk to God through a huge curtain . Once Jesus died on that cross the curtain was ripped from the top down to the bottom(another post in that itself). The separation was gone. We can now walk up to God and tell him for ourselves what we have done, our love for Him, give His praises, and just as important talk to Him about our day.
There is so much more than okay I will make it to heaven. The expansion of heaven starts here. It starts with the relationship. Building a strong bond between God and ourselves. I never spend more time on telling people about salvation from hell has i do salvation from being unable to communicate to God.
I told him that he needed to be 100% percent sure. He did pray, he didn't let me pray with him. He said he wanted to be sure that he needed to. The last thing I said to him was be 100% sure. This is to serious not to be 100% certain. Get right with God. If you think your saved you better fall to your knees and make sure that you relationship with God and the acceptance of His Son Jesus is understood and known. It is too serious to risk going to hell.
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We must also remember that it not only took the cross, but Christ coming as a child to live a sinless life of obedience to His Father. I read a book by A. W. Pink once, and he noted that a saved soul looks at Christ as a place of cleansing from sin, and a lost man looks at Christ as a way to escape the torment of hell.
As you note, we can never tell a person if they are saved, so when someone ponders the questions of doubt, I simply remind them that salvation and sanctification both involve repentance and faith. Whereas salvation is a one-time regeneration quickening of our spirit to eternal life, sanctification is a daily process of cleansing and growing closer to God in our Christian walk. Both involve confession of sin, and putting faith in Christ to cleanse us of it, that our fellowship with God be not hindered. God doesn't laugh at confession of sin, and our putting faith in Him - so if we have doubts - we need only to come to Him.
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