09/25/2025
Are you saved? Are you absolutely certain that you are at peace with God?
I can tell you from my own personal experience eleven years ago before I started going to Maranatha Chapel, that although I believed on some level, I wasn't really saved even though I believed in Jesus Christ.
Since I started walking with the Lord I've been learning what true salvation is. I still don't know or fully understand it, but I do have a much deeper understanding of salvation than I had all the years I thought I was saved.
My first indicator that I wasn't really saved when I started going to Maranatha Chapel in 2014 was that there was a war going on inside of me. The sin nature inside of me didn't want me to go, and the devil kept whispering in my ears that I didn't need church, but another part of me knew that I needed to be there.
I battled within myself for the first few months because I knew there were things and ways of this world that God was going to ask me to turn from, which a part of me didn't want to let go of. God had begun wooing me long before I met Nadene, and attempted to lead me away from some of those things that I wasn't ready to surrender. Because God continued to woo me after I started going, I resisted the urge to stop going. God didn't let me go, and I am eternally grateful!
Jesus said “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Believing is only the start of the process of salvation, as I have also come to understand. The key words are “shall be” because there's more to being saved than just believing. The devils believe and they tremble. Believing won't save them from the fate God has for them. True salvation means that a change takes place in us.
I know this because Jesus also said “Except a man be born again, he shall not see the Kingdom of God.” I can tell you not only that I am born again, but also how I know that I am born again.
Unlike when I started going to Maranatha Chapel, I now have had a deep burning desire to be there every time the doors are open ever since the end of 2014. When I can't be there I miss being there, and I even feel a void inside for the next day or so because I didn't get to go.
Another way I know that I am born again is that I have an unquenchable hungering and thirsting not only for hearing and reading the Word of God as often as I have the chance to, but I also have a hungering and thirsting to walk after the righteousness of God.
Jesus describes being born again by saying ”Except a man be born of water and born of the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Having a desire to be filled with the righteousness of God is one way we can know if we are born of the Spirit of God. If we are not repulsed by the unrighteousness we see within ourselves, which we also see in those who are unsaved, then we are not born of the the Spirit of God. Wanting to always be hearing and reading the Word of God is one way to learn how to walk in the righteousness of God.
I can tell you that I know God has been working on me ever since before I even started going to Maranatha Chapel. Since I started walking with Him in 2014, He has continued to work on me to remake me into the image and likeness of His only begotten Son. This is what being saved means to me… being saved from myself, to become who God has always intended me to be from the moment I was created in my mother's womb.
If you believe that you are saved, but haven't experienced this, you need to consider the possibility that you have yet to be born again. The time is short. Jesus Christ is returning for His church. His church is born again, without spot and without wrinkle, having clean hands and a pure heart, unrebukable before God.
If you want to be caught up to meet Jesus in the clouds when he returns for His church, it's time to surrender to the Lord while it is still called today, because today is the accepted time, today is the day of salvation. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow, and none of us knows how or when we will take our last breaths. We have to make ourselves right with God before that happens or we will not make it in.
If you are not absolutely certain that you are born again, and want to be assured that you will make it in, pray the following:
“God, I come to you a sinner and I ask Your forgiveness and mercy for the sins upon my soul. I thank You for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross that I could be saved. I believe in my heart that You raised Him from the grave to give me new life. Wash me, cleanse me and make me new in mind, heart, soul and spirit in the precious blood of Jesus and fill me with your Spirit that I can turn from my own ways to make Your righteousness my own. By faith I confess that I am a new creature in Christ Jesus. I confess that I am born again and that I am a child of God. I thank and praise You for my salvation, in Jesus name I pray, Amen!”