Am I Really Saved?

Close your eyes; picture yourself standing before a huge, beautiful golden thrown with Jesus sitting there at the right hand of God. He has a large book in His hand. He asks you “so my dear, what is your name”. You answer, Sandy Anton! He turns page after page looking for your name, your heart is pounding anxiously waiting for Him to find it, but its no where to be found in the Lamb’s Book of Life! You fall down, confused, afraid, shaking with the knowledge of your certain future of hell in eternity when finally you get the words out, “but why Lord, why not? Lord, Lord did I not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out many demons and perform many miracles, was I not in church every Sunday”? Now your head bowed, knees on the ground, tears streaming down your face when you hear His awful yet familiar words “I never knew you, depart from Me you who practice lawlessness”.

What a day that would be! Nothing less than a shocking revelation that I was not what I thought I was and going where I thought I was going and the result was forever punishment and torment in hell. How are we to know if we are saved, if our name is in the Lamb’s book of life right now? How are we to know if our soul has been bought by the precious blood that Jesus Christ shed on the cross? Some would say because He promised, some would say because I am a good person even yet some would say yeah I believe in God! Only the saved receive the promise of eternal life so how do we really know if we are saved! In the book of Romans in chapter 10 starting with verse 9 we see that we must confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and you will be saved, for it is with our hearts that we are justified and believe and with our mouths that you confess and are saved. I could stop here and send you all away and say “there now you are saved”. But I believe there is deep meaning in “believe in your hearts”. Lets look at Matt. 7:21, when Jesus talks about “THAT DAY” and you who practice lawlessness…just who are the YOU? I believe the “you” are the one who thought they were saved. Come on non-believers didn’t go around prophesying in Jesus name and cast out demons in His name. So how can one think they are saved and not really be saved? Remember Romans chapter 8, believe in your heart and Matt. Chapter 7, Jesus says only those who does the will of the father will be saved. So the will of the father must be for us to believe in our hearts, which for me brings me back to the same question, how do we know if we really believe in our hearts. Matt. 6:21 tells us “for where your treasure is there your heart will be also”. So Jesus and our belief in Him need to be our treasure.

What is a treasure? {box}, Long ago pirates were on search of a treasure. They would carry around a box similar to this one and inside was their treasure. It probably would be filled with lots of gold. This was their treasure, not only was it their treasure but it was worth them dying for. They would fight and kill anyone who would come along and try to steal it from them. They would keep close guard of it. Someone was always standing on watch. They didn’t put the treasure box on a shelf in plain view and let it collect dust. They didn’t just throw it in a corner until they had time to go and look at it. They kept it close to them so that no one could steal it away. Today when you get paid, you don’t carry around your paycheck in your pocket. You deposit the money into a bank, for safe keeping. You protect the things in your homes. We place value on them, they are dear to our hearts. This is how Jesus is to be for us dear and in our hearts.

He tells us the workers of lawlessness will be sent away and yet they thought they were saved. Where was their treasure, heart? Jesus tells us, it was in their lawlessness. Lawlessness is sin and being a worker of it would be like a job, or a lifestyle of that particular sin. What ever we are practicing is in our lifestyle so our heart will follow and this will be our treasure. But what exactly is sin. Jesus tells us in Matt. 15:19 “for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness {lies}, and slanders. It is recounted in Mark 7:21 and Jesus explains that all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. There is so much more about lawlessness, turn to Galatians 5:19. Paul tells us here that the acts of a sinful nature are obvious; sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like, I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of heaven! In 1 Cor. 6:9 he says do you not know that the wicked shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters or adulators, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor the drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God!