Are you saved?
“Are you saved?” she asked me.
“Absolutely, and I hope to be in heaven one day.” I replied.
“Brother, if were are saved, then you would know you are going to heaven. When were you saved?” she asked
“Just today” I said.
“Well, Halleluiah!” she exclaimed.
I knew what she meant, but I was headed to a destination and I was on a tight time scale. I would have loved to have talked more with my rather jubilant sister but time did not permit. I anticipate that the conversation would have angled toward the topic such of “once saved always saved” which I do not ascribe to for several reasons:
- It presumes that we can earn our way into heaven
- To me, the term “I’m saved” is problematic because it starts with the letter “I” which implies that I am the impetus for this movement. I am not – He is. If I “accept Jesus into my heart” (which is not a phrase found in the Bible) then that is a good and noble thing! But in-and-of itself, it is not salvific. Only the cross is. Recall those who thought they were saved in Matthew 7:23, only to hear Jesus declare, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!“
- It assumes we can know God’s thoughts
- Proclaiming to be “heaven bound” implies that the judgement is already over and by doing so, I have make myself judge. I completely understand the desire to know one’s ultimate destiny but frankly, I find that presumptuous. Philippians 2:12 tells us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” and to think that we’ve worked it out already, takes the decision out of God’s hands. Again, I get the longing to want to know our future but God owns the future. We do not.
- It is not Biblical
- Although biblically based, the phrases “accepting Jesus into our heart” and the words of “the sinner’s prayer” are not found in the Bible. But (lest you assume I’m only bashing non-Catholics here) neither is the word “rosary”.
But so what? There are lots of words that are not in the Bible that we know plenty about (words like internet, porn, abortion and television). Are we to assume these things don’t exist? Of course not. Look, we are not automatons or machines that God programmed to think, act, and feel in a certain way. We are free beings created in His image. Salvation (according to John 3:5), cannot happen “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit”. So we must experience both baptisms, a water baptism (as Jesus experienced) and a baptism of the Holy Spirit (which Mary and the Apostles experienced in the upper room in Act 2:3. So am I saved? Yes! And I get saved again every morning because I say the rosary AND accept Jesus into my heart. It’s not an either/or situation…its a both/and situation.
“But then you are relying on yourself (saying prayers) to earn heaven” some will say.
No! I do these things of my own free will and volition because it’s what He wants and since I want to please Him it becomes what I want too. If I were to stop telling God I loved Him, it wouldn’t harm Him (because He is God), but it would harm me. As a corollary, if I stopped telling my wife I loved her, it wouldn’t invalidate our marriage – but is sure would affect it. So what are we to do? We believe and we have faith. Yes it is natural to be concerned about the future, but for the Christian, there is no such thing as fear. Starting the day with a rosary or accepting Jesus into your heart are good things, but if we do so only sparingly or if we lead a life of debauchery and sin the rest of the day, then we just nullified those efforts.
So keep saying the rosary, and keep claiming Jesus as Lord of your heart, but carry that sentiment every day and through to the entire day.