How to Know You're Saved Without Doubting

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. How do you know you're saved? That's one of the most common questions I hear from listeners. Honestly, it's one of the most important questions we can ask. People write in all the time and say things like, I want to believe, but I still struggle with sin. I still feel like I'm failing. How can I be sure if I'm really saved? Or, I've prayed, I've gone to church, but sometimes I wonder, have I really done what I need to do to be saved? Maybe you've asked that question too. When I look at the struggles of my own life, I get it. I understand the question on a very personal level. Because the more seriously we take our faith, the more aware we become of how far we fall short. We wonder, well, if I still sin, if I still struggle and wrestle with doubt and temptation, how can I know that I belong to God? Jesus told his followers to stay awake, to be alert, and to be ready for his return. But how do you know if you're ready? How do you know if you've responded to him in the way that leads to eternal life? That's what we're going to talk about today. Before we dive in, I want to tell you where I'm coming from theologically. I believe the Bible teaches what's commonly called election. And in my understanding, that means God has settled this question before we were even born. I believe that Scripture teaches that God, in his wisdom and sovereignty, chose some to receive the gift of eternal life, and he chose not to grant that gift to others. Now, I know that not everyone agrees with that. Other theological traditions understand election differently or don't hold to the doctrine at all. And honestly, I think a lot of people misunderstand what election means in the first place. It's one of those topics that tends to stir up debate and sometimes a lot of heat. But I'm not going to get into election today. You don't have to agree with me on election to follow this conversation. I'm setting that doctrine aside because it's not really essential to answering this question. How do you know you're saved? Whether or not you believe in election, I want to give you an answer that you can work with, an answer that's rooted in Scripture and doesn't have any theological labels. So here's the question we're going to answer today. How can I know if I'm saved? Now we could ask that several different ways. We could ask, how do I know that my sins have been forgiven? How do I know I have a place in the kingdom of God? How do I know I truly belong to Jesus? How do I know that I genuinely believe? And how do I know I'm part of God's people? However we phrase it, we're asking the same thing. And this is what we're really concerned about. Not as a theory or a theological question, but as a deeply personal question. How can I be sure that when this life is over, I will receive eternal life instead of judgment? And here's the good news. I think this question is answerable. God could have kept the answer hidden. He could have left it as an invisible reality, something only he knew and was buried deep in his plans and purposes beyond our ability to see or understand. But he didn't. I believe that scripture teaches that God made the answer visible. He gave us something here and now, something in our lives that we can see and recognize that tells us we belong to him. Think of it like a mark, a brand of ownership. God in his grace places something on us that shows we're his. That mark is the evidence we need to know that we belong to him. If we see that mark in our lives, then we know that we belong to him. Now the mark I'm talking about, the one that shows we belong to God, is analogous to circumcision in the Old Testament. If you remember, God asked his chosen people, the Israelites, to place a physical mark on their bodies. That physical mark was a visible sign that said, I belong to the children of Israel. If you had the mark, you were counted among his people, and if you didn't, you weren't. Circumcision then distinguished God's people from everyone else. Well, the mark we're talking about today is similar, but also very different. Because the mark that identifies God's people is not something you can see on the outside. It's not carved in the body. Instead, it's stamped onto the heart. It's a mark on the inside. It's on our values, our beliefs, and our desires. It shapes the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we choose to live. When God marks you as his own, he doesn't dislabel you, he transforms you. He makes you into a distinctive kind of person with a distinctive way of seeing the world. Christians value different things, pursue different things, and we live for different purposes. And that difference is tangible, it's visible and it's discernible. That inner transformation marks us as children of God. Now, the place where God puts that mark is what the Bible often calls the heart. Now, that's not the only word scripture uses to describe it. Sometimes scripture talks about our inner being or our spirit or the inner man. You'll find different terms in different passages, but they're all pointing to the same core idea, your heart or the deepest part, the thing that makes you who you are. For clarity's sake, I'm just going to use the word heart, but just keep in mind other biblical writers might use a different word, but they're talking about the same thing. So we'll talk about the heart as the place where God places his mark and begins his changes and brands us as his own. So just as Jews circumcise the body to show that they belong to the people of God, now God circumcises our hearts to show that we belong to him. Now that's not a metaphor I made up, that's the language of scripture. But there's an important distinction we need to make. The circumcision that God required of the Jews, the physical mark on the body, was meant to indicate that someone belonged to the people of God, but it was not a guarantee. It wasn't always reliable. Because someone could have the physical mark of circumcision and not belong to God in any meaningful way. They could go through the ritual without a heart that was truly aligned with God. And Paul makes that point in the opening chapters of the book of Romans. He argues that the mark that really matters is not the one that's placed on our outward body. The mark that really matters is the one God places on our heart. That mark tells the truth about who we are and where we're headed. Because when God circumcises our hearts, when he starts transforming who we are on the inside, that is a reliable indicator that we really belong to him. If your heart has been circumcised by God, then you are one of his people, you belong to him, and you will receive eternal life in the end. There's a perfect one-to-one correspondence between those who enter eternal life and those whose hearts have been marred by God. And that's how we know. Now, the same principle we applied to circumcision applies to baptism today. Baptism is an external ritual. It's a visible outward act that God asks us to complete when we come to faith. It's important and it's a meaningful step of obedience, but being physically baptized is not a guarantee that you're saved. Just like circumcision in the Old Testament, baptism is an outward sign, but what truly matters is what's happening on the inside. That's the baptism that counts. The outward ritual is not what saves you. Rather, the mark that matters is the one that God places on your heart through the work of the Holy Spirit. So we have arrived at one answer to our question, how can I know that I'm saved? I can know that I'm saved if I can figure out whether or not my heart has been circumcised, or to use New Testament language, if I can figure out whether I've been born again and baptized with the Holy Spirit. And that's a meaningful answer, but let's be honest, it doesn't get us very far because that immediately raises another question. Well, how do I tell if my heart's been circumcised? How do I know if I've been born again or baptized by the Spirit? So that brings us to the next question we need to ask. How does God mark my heart in a way that shows I belong to Him? What does it look like to have a heart that's been circumcised by God? Well, Scripture tells us that God marks us by making us holy. That's the word the Bible uses most often, holy. God marks me as his own by changing me on the inside. He makes my spirit, my mind, my inner being holy. And by doing that, he shows that I'm one of his. So if I can discern that my heart has been made holy, if I can recognize that kind of transformation starting in myself, then I can know with confidence I belong to him and I'm destined for eternal life. But of course, that raises another very important question. How do I know if my heart is holy? What does a holy heart look like, and how do I recognize those traits in myself? Well, before we can understand that, we have to understand what holiness means. At its essence, holiness is a condition of the heart. It's not about being flawless or perfect, it's a change in direction, a change in inclination. It's about being set apart to belong to God. To have a holy heart means that my inner being, my deepest desires, my mindset, my attitudes, the thing that makes me me, that has been reshaped to be positively inclined toward God rather than negatively inclined. So instead of resisting him, I find myself drawn to him. I want what he wants. I value what he values. My heart is no longer turned away from God, it's turned toward him. That's what it means to be holy. By default, all of us natural-born sinners are hostile to God. That's how we all start. Our natural inclination is to ignore God, to resist him, and to live our life on our own terms. There's no reverence, no desire to please him, and no hunger for his truth. At best, we are indifferent to God. At worst, we reject him. That's what I mean by a negative inclination, a kind of deep inner resistance to the things of God. But when God reaches out and saves me, he turns all that around. He doesn't make me perfect, he doesn't make me free of sin, but he does change the direction of my heart. Where I was once negatively inclined toward God, now I'm positively inclined toward him. Where there was resistance, there's now a desire to know and love him. Where there was apathy, there's now a pursuit of the things of God. And where there was rebellion, now there's desire and longing to be like him. The Bible calls that shift being made holy or being set apart for God. So if I can discern that change, if I can see that my heart has been turned around, that my mindset and desires are now inclined toward God rather than against him, then I can know I've been marked by God and I will receive eternal life. But that brings us right back to the same old question. How do I know? How do I know if I've been marked like that in my inner being? How do I know if my heart is now inclined toward God? Because until I can answer that, until I can say what that change actually looks like, I don't really have a very satisfying answer to the question. So what does the Bible tell us about being holy? What does it look like to have a heart that's positively inclined toward God? Well, Scripture answers that in a variety of ways, but one of the clearest places we see it is in Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23. This is a passage where the Apostle Paul talks about what he calls the fruit of the Spirit. Paul describes what happens when God starts working in us. When God marks us as his and gives us his spirit, the spirit actively works in our lives to turn us toward God and begin the process of sanctifying us or making us completely holy. And Paul describes that as the fruit of the spirit. That's the results, the natural outgrowth of God working in our hearts. Just as when a tree grows up and matures, it produces fruit. Fruit is the results of maturity. So when the Spirit of God starts working in us, the fruit of the spirit is what results. It's the change that we see in our lives. In other words, when God transforms my heart, certain qualities begin to grow and take root. And these are signs that God is at work in me. These are indicators that I've been marked by the Spirit. Well, here's what Paul says: this is Galatians 5, 22 and 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Now, we could say a lot about each of those qualities, and there's many ways we can misunderstand them. And I am not going to go into explaining them here. I have a full podcast series on the fruit of the spirit where I go over each one in its own episode and I explain what it is, why it's fruit of the spirit, and why it's on the list. And I'll put a link to that series in the show notes. But for our purposes, we can say one answer to this question is if I look at my life and I see the fruit of the spirit growing in me, if I see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, properly understood, if I see those things, then the answer is yes, God is at work in my life because this is the fruit of the Spirit, and the Spirit is changing me. So that's one answer we could give. We could also look at one of the most famous teachings of Jesus, the Beatitudes, which is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5. It's also one of my favorite passages. The Beatitudes are part of the Sermon on the Mount, and in this sermon, Jesus describes the people who will enter the kingdom of heaven. Well, these are the people that are saved. So if we see the qualities described in the Sermon on the Mount in ourselves, then we have an answer to our question. Let me read those to you. This is Matthew chapter 5, verses 2 through 12. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Now again, there's a lot to understand about each of those beatitudes, and there's a lot to misunderstand, and I will not take the time to explain all of them in this podcast. But again, I have a teaching on the Gospel of Matthew, and in that series I cover each of the Beatitudes in its own episode, and I will put a link to that in the show notes as well. But again, for our purposes, each of these beatitudes describes what God is doing in the heart of his people. These are not moral virtues or happy personality traits. These are signs of spiritual transformation. They describe what a heart that is being made holy looks like. They show us what a heart that's positively inclined toward God looks like. So again, we can ask ourselves, do I see these qualities growing in me? And if the answer is yes, then we are children of God. But I want to make one thing very clear. Notice that Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Jesus doesn't say, Blessed are the righteous. He says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We hunger and thirst for it because we don't have it yet. It is in our future. We long for righteousness the way a starving man longs for food. And that's a crucial distinction. As natural-born sinners, we are not morally perfect. We are not free from sin. And being saved does not make us free from sin yet. That's just a reality of being human in a fallen world. When I say qualities like the fruit of the Spirit or the Beatitudes mark us, I am not saying we are now like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. We are not. We are still sinners and we will continue to sin until we enter the kingdom of heaven. Struggling with sin does not disqualify us from being part of God's people, and it does not mean that we are not marked by God. The key is how we respond to sin in our lives, because there are two kinds of sinners in this world. There are sinners who don't care. Sin is just part of who they are, and they don't care what God has to say about it. They're going to do whatever they want to do. Those sinners are negatively inclined toward God. But there are people we might call righteous sinners. We know we're sinners and we hate it. We are grieved by it and we hunger and thirst to be different. The ones who are marked by God look at their sin and they long for something better. And that longing, that hunger, is part of the mark. That's another way you can know if you belong to God. Not being perfect, perfection doesn't mark you as belonging to God. None of us are perfect now. It's the hunger for holiness and righteousness that marks us. So we've talked about two very well-known passages, the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5 and the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, but there are many other places in the New Testament that describe what holiness looks like. Take the book of Ephesians, for example. In the last three chapters of Ephesians, Paul describes what it looks like to walk in the light, which is another way of saying to live as someone who belongs to God. If we were to go through the New Testament and gather up every description of a heart that has been sanctified or is marked by God, I think we could summarize it this way. People who have been marked by God love what God loves. They value and seek goodness, truth, mercy, and justice. They value what God values, they see the world the way God sees it, and they long to be like God. In short, holiness touches everything. It reshapes our whole inner person. And when we see the inclination, the longing to be holy grow in us, not perfectly, but genuinely, we are seeing evidence that our hearts have been marked by God. Paul puts it this way in Ephesians chapter 5. This is verses 7 through 10. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. So he's talking about the Gentiles, people who don't know God. He says, Therefore, do not become partakers with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Well, that's another way of describing what we've been talking about. What does it mean to be holy? Paul says the fruit of the light, which is another way of talking about the fruit of the Spirit, is found in all that is good and right and true. So goodness, righteousness, and truth. If we find our hearts leaning toward goodness, righteousness, and truth, then we're seeing evidence that God is at work in us. So now we're finally coming to something practical. One way we can begin to answer the question, Am I truly saved, is by examining ourselves to see if we recognize the attributes we've just been talking about. Do I see the fruit of the Spirit growing in me? Do I recognize the heart attitudes that Jesus describes in the Beatitudes? Do I see the kind of desires that Paul talks about in Ephesians, a heart that is drawn toward goodness, righteousness, and truth? And if I do, if the answer to those questions is yes, then I know I belong to God. But what if I don't see those qualities? What if I don't see the fruit of the Spirit? Can I say with confidence, I am not a child of God? No. If you don't see those qualities, it means you don't have enough evidence yet to answer yes. But it doesn't mean the answer is no. Jesus said, a tree is known by its fruit. In other words, what grows out of your life is the clearest sign of what's really happening in your heart. If the Spirit of God is at work, You changes will come, but it could be you just haven't seen them yet. Maybe it's too early to see fruit. But I know what you're thinking. There's a problem with this answer, look for fruit. And that's why the answer fails to satisfy us. The problem is we're still sinners, and whatever else we see, we are going to see the fruit of sin. We may see signs of the spirit at work. We may see moments of loving what is good and right and true. And we may think, hmm, maybe that's the fruit of the spirit. But then we will also see signs of sin. We will see moments of deceit and selfishness, pride and coveting. So which evidence do you trust? Do you look at what appears to be the fruit and say, yes, I belong to a God? Or do you look at the sin and say, how could I possibly belong to God when I'm still capable of that? And that's where we get stuck. Right in the middle of that tension between fruit and failure. We're right back at the starting question, how do I know I'm saved? At this point, it's crucial that we understand how God brings about salvation. What is God doing when he saves someone? God is not saving righteous people. He's not even saving morally neutral people. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's the whole point of the gospel. Every human being is a sinner by nature. We are selfish and unrighteous at our very core. The only exception is Jesus. But for the rest of us, sin comes as naturally to us as breathing. But here's the key: seeing sin in my life does not mean God is not working in me. Sin in and of itself is not contrary evidence because God came to save sinners like us. He came into the world to put his mark, his brand of ownership, on broken, sinful, unworthy people like you and me. God doesn't start with people who are already good. He starts with people like us. But here's something we have to understand. When God marks us as his, he does not instantaneously make us morally perfect and holy. At the moment of conversion, you do not become a person who no longer sins. You are still a sinner, but there's a difference. Now you are a sinner who hates being a sinner. Now you are a sinner who longs to be holy, beautiful, and worthy and good, like God. And that's the mark. So when I look for evidence, I'm not looking for perfection because that hasn't happened yet, and it won't happen in this life. Instead, I'm looking for attitudes and motivations and my deepest longings. Where there used to be only rebellion or indifference to God, now I see a desire to know him, to trust him, and to follow him. And that change, and it could be subtle or dramatic, it could be fast or slow, but that change is the mark that I belong to him. But of course, that brings us right back to the crux of the issue. We're still at the same dilemma. I can examine my life and read the evidence both ways. I can see evidence that I desire to be like God at times, and at other times I don't. So I'm left with subjective judgment, my own personal guess as to whether I'm a child of God or not. And right there is the tension. And that's what makes this such a difficult question for so many of us. Because while the facts are usually clear, how we interpret those facts is where everything gets cloudy. Because I know, and I think most people know, I know how good I am at deceiving myself. I am capable of misreading my heart, of rationalizing my sin, of excusing way too much or accusing other people too harshly. And that's why it's so hard for me personally to answer the question about myself. So where does that leave us? Is there any objective evidence that I'm going to be safe? That's really the question we've been asking all along. We want something we can point to and say, that's it, that's evidence, and there's no interpretation required. And in response to that craving, well-meaning Bible students over the years have offered a few answers, but some of those answers I would say are actually false assurances. For example, here's one of the most common. Some people have said, well, if you doubt your salvation, get on your knees and pray the sinner's prayer. Ask God to forgive your sins because of Jesus and his death on the cross. And once you've prayed that prayer, write down the date and the time and the place where you prayed it. And put that piece of paper someplace safe. And the next time you're struggling with doubt, go back to that piece of paper, and that's your objective evidence. That's your proof. Well, on the surface, that sounds helpful. There's no interpretation involved. It's right there in ink on this date, time, and place, I prayed this prayer. But that approach doesn't really deliver what it promises. The problem with the write-it-down strategy is that it offers what I call false assurance. It does give you something concrete to look at. It gives you a piece of paper. But what does that paper actually prove? It only gives me objective evidence that I prayed a prayer. It tells me that at a certain time and place I said certain words, but it doesn't tell me anything about what was going on inside my heart when I said them. Was I sincere? Was my heart really engaged? Was I responding to external pressure someone was putting on me? Or was I responding to the Spirit of God at work in my life? So that strategy doesn't really satisfy me. There's another answer that Christians sometimes offer to this question, and it goes like this: stop focusing so much on yourself. Shift your focus, take your eyes off your doubts, and put your eyes on the faithfulness of God. God promised that through Jesus He would forgive your sins. Is God a liar? Of course not. Does God break his promises? No, he's always faithful. So you can count on the fact that you're saved because God says so. And there is some truth in that. There is some comfort in knowing that God is not shaky, even if I am. But again, the approach doesn't really answer the question we're asking. Because the problem is not whether God is faithful. When I'm asking if I'm a believer, I'm not doubting God. I'm doubting myself. I know God keeps his promises. What I'm questioning is whether I do. The real question is, did God make those promises to me? God doesn't promise that all of us will be saved just because we're human. God's promises apply to everyone who believes in Jesus. The question is, how do I know I'm one of them? So shifting my focus to the faithfulness of God may be encouraging, but it still leaves the core question unanswered. So where does that leave us? Well, Scripture gives us one more answer that I think will finally settle the question for us. And there are a couple of passages we could look at, but I want to look at Romans chapter 5. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I will read you Romans 5, 1 through 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Now, there's a lot we could talk about in that passage. I just want to highlight one idea for our purposes. First, let me give you a bit of the context. Romans 5 marks a shift in Paul's argument. Up to this point in the book of Romans, Paul has been laying out the gospel. He's been explaining why it is and how it is that we are saved by faith in Jesus and not through keeping the Old Testament law. In chapter 5, he basically answers the question, so what? So if the gospel is true, what does that mean for me now? And one of the points he makes is that we rejoice in our sufferings because of what sufferings produce in us. Now, what does he mean by sufferings? Sufferings are pressures or trials or temptations. They're all the difficulties of life, they're all the circumstances we face that stretch us, wear us down, and force us to ask the question, what am I really counting on? What is most important to me, and what do I really want? Trials expose what's in our hearts. They present us with situations where we have to choose between following God or following our sinful desires. So our choices reveal what's in our hearts. So what happens when we face a trial or suffering? Well, in 5.3, Paul says, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. So what does he mean by endurance? To endure means to stay the course. We keep seeking God, we keep trusting Jesus, and we don't let anything knock us off the path. Whether or not we give in to the temptation, we continue to long for righteousness and holiness and want to be like God. That's what it means to endure or to persevere. Some people don't persevere. Some people, when life gets hard and when following Jesus costs them more than they expected, they say, forget it. I tried Christianity, it's not for me, and they turn around and walk away. But others stay the course, they persevere, and that teaches us something powerful. He goes on in 5.4. And endurance produces character, and character produces hope. So this word translated character has the idea of proven character. It's the idea that my character has been tested and shown through the test to be worthy and genuine. Its true nature, its true character has been proven. So the test, the trial or the circumstances raise the question: what are you going to do? Who are you going to count on? What do you value most? What are you seeking? Are you following God or are you following the world? And if I choose to follow God and I don't walk away, then I've passed the test. And that endurance gives me something solid to hold on to. I can say I know who I am because my character has been proven. Not because I'm sinless, not because I'm now perfect, but because when I was tested, my character was shown to be a character who follows God. I stayed and I endured. And that endurance, that perseverance, is evidence that God has saved me. Look at how Paul continues. This is four and five. And endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. When I endure through trials, that reveals my heart, my character. And when my character is shown to follow God, that gives me hope. And what is that hope? Hope is a confident, eager expectation that something wonderful will happen. Back in 5.2, Paul said, We boast or we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And he's still talking about that. When we know we belong to God, then we know with confidence that one day we will share in the glory of God. And one aspect of his glory we will share in is that we will be made completely free from sin. God will make us morally beautiful, holy, and worthy. Well, how do I know that hope is mine? I know that hope is mine if I have been tested and shown through the test to be a person who follows God. Now I think we can finally connect the dots. Paul says we rejoice in our trials, we rejoice in our sufferings. Why? Because suffering produces endurance, and endurance proves our character. And when our true nature has been tested and shown to be marked by God, that gives us hope. We have a confident, eager expectation that we belong to God and the promises of the gospel are ours. Now I can say with confidence, I am saved. How do I know? Because I've been tested. Life tested me, trials and temptations came, and I didn't give up. Even under pressure, I still chose the kingdom of God. Now that doesn't happen because I'm strong. That doesn't happen because I'm better than other people. That only happens because the Spirit of God is at work in me. There's no other explanation. So that brings us back to our core question. How do I know that I'm saved? And here's the answer Paul is giving us in Romans 5. I can know that I'm saved if my faith has been tested by trials and suffering, and I pass the test. At the end of the trial, at the end of the suffering, I still seek God, I still long for his mercy, and I still want to follow him. I would only continue to seek him if God has marked me as his. The only explanation for why I endure and persevere is because God has sealed me with his spirit and promised to make me his child. That's what Paul says in 5.5. Hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Our hope in God will not disappoint us. We will not be shamed, because God has sealed us with the Holy Spirit and marked us as his. So looking back at my life when I see times I endured, that gives me tangible, objective proof that I am a child of God. I can look back and say, I went through that and I'm still seeking Jesus. So I can say with confidence, I am saved. Now, is this objective in the sense that it removes all possibility of self-deception? No, it's sadly not that kind of objective. There is still room for me to misread myself. That's always a danger. But look at what Paul is offering here and notice how much more reliable it is than simply sitting back and trying to assess whether I see the fruit of the spirit in my life. Because let's be honest, I could sit on my couch in the comfort of my home in a moment when life is calm and quiet and everything is going well. And I could ask myself, do I see love, peace, joy, and goodness? And I could think, yeah, sure I do. But there's nothing testing me. There's no pressure. Nothing's at stake. I'm just reflecting. And in that comfort, it's easy to convince myself, yeah, yeah, I think God has marked me. But when a trial comes, it's different. Temptations and suffering force me to make a choice. It forces me to ask, do I really believe the promises of God? Is that really where I'm putting my hope? And in those moments where I have to decide what I really want, my faith is tested. And when I choose to follow God, it shows my faith is real. That's evidence that the Spirit of God is at work in me, and that's the mark. So what's the bottom line? How can I know that I'm saved? Well, here's how. I can know that I'm saved because God has tested me, and the test has revealed that my faith is real. Because we've all had those moments, you know what I'm talking about, where part of you thinks, this is too hard. I just want to forget it. I just want to walk away. God's taking too long, he's asking too much. I couldn't possibly follow him there. And yet, I did. Something held me, something deeper in me refused to let go. And when I look at that honestly, I know that was the Spirit of God at work in me. That's the mark of his ownership showing itself. So being tested by trials is how we know we're saved. That's the answer the Bible gives to the question we've been asking all along. Now it's entirely possible that some of you listening right now haven't yet been tested in this particular way. And if that's the case, if your faith hasn't been through that kind of proving ground, then it's also possible that you don't have any solid basis for knowing with confidence that you'll be saved. But listen to me here. That doesn't mean you won't ever know. That doesn't mean God intends to leave you in the dark. If God has chosen you for eternal life, sooner or later he will test you. He will reveal to you who you are, and he will make known to you where you stand with him and what your destiny is. I don't believe God leaves any of his children untested. So if you don't know now, that doesn't mean you won't know later. Just wait. And where will that knowledge come from? It won't come from trying harder, it won't come from forcing belief, it won't come from writing down a prayer on a piece of paper and sticking it in a drawer. That knowledge will come through testing. Life testing you will reveal where you stand, who you believe, and what you're counting on. And that's why Paul says we rejoice in our trials, because our trials teach us something we desperately want to know. Peter tells us the testing of our faith is more valuable than gold refined by fire, because what could be more important than knowing where we stand with God? And how can we know in this life? Only through testing. So Paul says, rejoice, rejoice in your testing, not because the suffering is pleasant, but because suffering reveals that your faith is real and knowing you have saving faith is worth everything. So if you're waiting for that kind of clarity, wait patiently, but wait expectantly, and know that when the time is right, God will make it known. That's the answer I think Scripture gives to our question, how can I know that I'm saved? You can know that you have genuine saving faith and thus will be saved when your faith has been tested by trials and you persevere through the end. That's the answer, and that's the hope. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. The blog version of this podcast is on wednesdayintheword.com slash know you are saved. Questions or comments about this podcast? I'd love to hear from you. Just click on the link below this podcast to text me. If you'd like to find more episodes like this one, just go to my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There's no charge, no spam, and no ads. Just free resources to help you grow in your understanding of scripture and learn to study it yourself. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please give it a positive rating wherever you listen. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician Reggie Coates. He's got a new album out, and you can find it at heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.