How to be Sure of Your Salvation in 5 Way

Ever wondered if you are truly saved? Here are 5 tips on how to be sure of your salvation.

Ever doubted your salvation? You know that you said some words, prayed a prayer, and felt like you were saved, but you just aren’t sure. Maybe you know that you’ve been saved but you’ve been struggling with some issues in your life and you’re wondering if you’ve lost your salvation.

If you’ve messed up and made so many bad choices you need to start over from scratch with God. If you’ve ever wondered about any of those things, keep reading because we are going to talk about them today.

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How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation: What It Takes to Be Saved

First, it’s important to talk about what it takes to be saved. Get an understanding of what the requirements for salvation are. When you get this truly understood it makes the rest of this conversation a little bit easier.

What do you have to do to be saved? In Romans 9:9-10 says “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

When we look at these verses in Romans, salvation is really simple. You confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord, you believe in your heart, and then you are saved. All it takes to be saved is to believe in Jesus, that he is God’s son, and that he died on the cross for your sins because there was no way that you were going to be able to pay the penalty of your sin.

He rose again three days later. He’s sitting on the throne in heaven and he’s going to come back again for his people. If you believe that, if you have recognized that you are a sinner who is incapable of saving yourself, that you cannot pay the price of sin, which is death, and you recognize that Jesus is your Lord and that he has paid that cost for you, then you will be saved.

That’s it, you’re saved. All it takes is to believe. Sometimes you wonder and question how can you know for sure that you are reconciled with Jesus. How can you know that you are going to heaven when you die? This can be a big burden depending on what you believe, what you were taught, and how you grew up.

I grew up hearing a lot of fire and brimstone sermons and lots of messages on hell and how I needed to be saved so I wouldn’t go to hell. That is the message that I remember very clearly hearing growing up when I was going to church, and because of that, I had this fear that any time I did something wrong I somehow lost my salvation.

I wasn’t saved anymore and I was going to hell if I didn’t get it right. I believed I had to be perfect and do things just right, otherwise, I was in trouble with God. This caused me a lot of confusion, anxiety, and worry until I began to dig into scripture for myself to see what God actually says about my salvation. These are the things that I want to share with you today.

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How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation: Jesus Says So

Let’s turn to the gospel of John 10:27. For context, the beginning of John 10 is where we get the parable of the Good Shepherd. Jesus explains how he is the Good Shepherd and that the people that follow him are his sheep. John 10:27-30 says, “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I gave eternal life to them, and they will never perish and no one will take them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father’s hand. I and the father are one.”

Jesus is very clearly explaining that if you believe in him, you are his sheep, you are saved, and you are his follower. This is how you become a Christian, you follow Christ. Once that happens, you have eternal life and you will never perish. This is how you can know that your salvation is secure.

Jesus says no one can take his sheep, his believers, his followers, out of his hand and that includes yourself. You can’t take yourself out of his hand. Then he says that his sheep can’t be taken out of his father’s hand either. You are doubly secure. You are secure in the hands of Jesus and you are secure in the hands of his father.

There is literally nothing that can make you lose your salvation. It just doesn’t happen. Rest in that truth of knowing that scripture says right from the mouth of Jesus, that nothing is going to take your salvation from you. Once you believe you are secure. That is it.

How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation: Discipline and Conviction

Another way that you can know that you are saved is when you go through discipline, or conviction from God. Romans tells us that there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Satan comes to accuse us and he wants to condemn us, but that doesn’t apply to children of God because you are secure in the hands of the Father and of the Son.

But you do go through discipline, you do get conviction from the Holy Spirit when you are doing something that does not line up with your new identity as a child of God. In John 15 you get the vine illustration and you’re told to abide in Jesus. John 15:1-2, “ I am the true vine and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”

This is talking about the fact that, as a child of God you’re going to be disciplined. You’re going to be challenged and stretched to grow through the process of sanctification, of becoming more and more like Jesus. I always heard this saying growing up: pruned if you do, pruned if you don’t.

That is what Jesus does because he wants us to bear fruit and the only way to make sure that whatever you’re growing is producing what you want it to is to prune. To get rid of the things that don’t need to be there, to get rid of the dead branches and things that are sick. That’s exactly what God does in our lives and in our hearts.

He knows us and he begins to search our hearts and he lets us know when there’s something going on in our hearts and our minds, in our lives, that doesn’t align with our new identity as his child. It doesn’t feel good, but ultimately it is for your good.

If you are wondering if you’re saved ask yourself if you feel conviction. Are you going through discipline? Do you not enjoy doing the sinful things that you used to do in your past? That is a sign that you belong to God.

How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation: You Bear Good Fruit

The next way to know if you’re saved is to check if you are bearing good fruit. Back to the passage where Jesus talks about you the vine and the branches and staying attached to the vine, the reason he says that is because you will bear good fruit.

How can you know that you are saved? How can you recognize fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Well, you look for the fruit. What fruit? Well, we get a whole list in the Bible called the fruit of the spirit. Bearing good fruit means that you begin to produce in you things that look like Christ, and look like somebody that is a follower of Jesus.

You’re able to be patient with people. You are able to be kind to people and you’re able to forgive. All of these things demonstrate that you are a changed person. You are not who you used to be. When somebody cuts you off in traffic, you’re not going to give them the finger out the window, because you are changed. You’re going to look different on the outside because of the good fruit you’re bearing.

How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation: Changed Desires

The next way to know that you are saved is changed desires. If you were a heavy drinker before Christ, you may lose your taste for those things once you are saved. You’re not going to want to drink or go out and party.

You’re not going to want to watch certain things and speak a certain way, or be around certain people because you are changed. You are a new person, and you are not going to be comfortable going back to the things that you used to do.

There might be movies that you don’t watch anymore because you realize they are not edifying or uplifting. You don’t need to feed your spirit with that TV show or those movies. You might decide to change the kind of music that you listen to because your current choices are not talking about anything positive.

You change where you hang out. As a Christian, you are not going to be out at the strip club or getting sloppy drunk on the weekends. You’re just not going to live your life that way and you’re not going to want to because God is going to begin to change your heart and desires for the things that he wants for you and the things that he desires for you.

That’s why he tells you to abide in him, stay close to him, be in the word, and be around like-minded people because what you really want to do is know that you’re becoming more and more like Jesus, and that includes your desires.

You’re going to want different things. Your goals and ambitions might change. All of this is because the Holy Spirit is working inside of you to bring out the things that God knows are there, and that changes the things that you desire and the things that you want to do.

How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation: Hunger for the Things of God

The fifth way that you can know that you’re saved is that you begin to hunger for the things of God. I know that that sounds really Christian-y, but all that really means is that you begin to want to know God more. You want to be in the word. You want to be fellowshipping with other believers.

You want to spend more time in prayer. You want to listen to worship music. You want to do all of these things that are going to strengthen your relationship with God. You began to really hunger for these things. You cannot go without it.

I know this for myself. I’ve had seasons where we haven’t been able to get to church like we wanted to, and I really longed for it. I couldn’t wait to get back and be around God’s people. I needed to be in corporate worship.

You will notice that you hunger for those things as you are growing closer to God and are learning more about who you are and who God is. You’re going to want to do those things more than you want to do other things from your past.

Final Thoughts on How to Be Sure Of Your Salvation

I want you to understand that scripture says nothing is going to take you out of God’s hands. Nothing, no thing, no one. It’s not going to happen once you’re saved. You don’t get kicked out because you make a mistake. God is not expecting perfection from you or me, because we cannot do that. You are always in the process of sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ.

Yes, you’re going to make a mistake. But you know what happens when you make a mistake? That discipline, that conviction, that pruning kicks in to bring you back into a right relationship with God. Your desires are going to change and you’re not going to want to make those same mistakes over and over and over again.

Instead, you’re going to want to do the things of God. You’re going to want to fellowship, to be in church service, to dig in scripture, to want to listen to uplifting and edifying things. You start to prefer and seek out people who are about God’s business. All of that is going to culminate in you bearing good fruit and you looking more and more like what God has called you to be as his child.

I hope and pray that, if you have been wondering, doubting, or struggling with how you can be assured of your salvation this post encourages you and reassures you. I know how difficult it can be, feeling like at any moment you’re going to mess up and do that one thing that’s going to keep you out of heaven.

Once you are God’s, you are God’s, and you are secure. He is not going to let you go, no matter what you do and no matter what you think, no matter what mistakes you make. He loves you, he’s not going to let you go. Rest in that truth and find peace in the assurance that once you belong to God you are his for eternity.

Doubting Your Salvation? 5 Ways to Know You’re Saved