Today I want to ask you if your salvation is real. Before you answer or get offended, I want to share a part of my life with you. I once prided myself in being saved in August of 1988; I do not remember much about the day besides having a conversation with Dr. Whittman, a man who sincerely believed in the Lord and who was genuinely concerned with the well-being of my soul. Sure, I walked down the church aisle the next Sunday and made my profession of faith known to all who were there. That evening I was baptized. Surely, having undergone all this I must be saved. If only that were truly the case. Although I had the head knowledge of Jesus there had been no great transformation, no real change in my heart.
The apostle Peter wrote, And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall (2 Peter 1:5-10). Although Peter is writing to Christians and are encouraging and reminding them of the importance of salvation, he reminds us about the changes that happen within the heart of the believer. Any Christian, or rather any real believer in Christ, should have the characteristics that Peter discusses. The problem is when we claim to be a Christian and do not have these traits we actually have a false salvation.
From 1988 until 2006, I really believed I was saved, after all, I had been baptized and was even regularly attending church. According to the world’s standard I was behaving exactly the way a Christian was supposed to behave. There was no struggle with the flesh because I would try to appease my sin nature and really felt no guilt. This is the danger of having a false salvation – it becomes easy to justify committing sins under the guise of “God understands” and “I can always ask for forgiveness.” While the Bible does teach that God will forgive sins it also teaches we are to avoid the situations that would easily allow us to yield to the temptation to sin. Since my spiritual life was fake and real salvation was not what I had, I felt no guilt about the lifestyle I was living. The only time I felt shame or conviction was when I was afraid that someone in the church where I was attending might find out what I was doing. In fact, I thought that every Christian felt like that and I was simply fighting the same battles as everyone else. What I didn’t understand was that not only was I lost, but the conviction and shame I was feeling was the Holy Spirit moving within my heart and mind.
When I finally gave my life to the Lord and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior on August 21, 2006, I knew there was something different – I told the Lord I was giving my life to him, rededicating myself to following His teachings. For a while I simply thought I had rededicated my life to Christ and began to fight the guilt and tremendous shame I felt for the way I lived between 1988 to 2006. This was nothing more than Satan trying to distract me from what had actually happened – I had become a new creäture through Christ, freed from the burdens of sin, reborn in His image! Satan began using those years where I believed I had been saved to keep me from the blessings and joy of the Lord. As I began to grow in my faith and learning the joys of real salvation, I began watching the control that Satan had on my life weaken. Now, please keep in mind that I am not perfect. In fact, I still struggle with temptation, but now have an understanding to avoid the temptations and situations that cause me to stumble.
