Luke said
Quote:
It's a good question
1) What can I do to be saved other than believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Nothing...
2) At the moment, I am struggling with the question "Is my belief real". I don't know how to answer that question.
3) I know the gospel and I believe it as best I can. If I am not saved, then I trust God will let me know for sure and save me. If I am saved, then I trust God will let me know, and give me peace.
4) The short answer is yes, I believe I am saved, but struggling due to emotional baggage, sin baggage and religious
|
Luke, pardon me for jumping in, but I think I know your problem. It is very common, and I experienced it myself many years ago. So, I consider myself an authority of sorts.
You are looking the wrong direction. You are looking at yourself instead of Christ. You see, believeing is something
you can know for a certainty. It is not a feeling. It is a decision. Everyone can believe. God would not give you something to do for salvation that might be impossible for you. It is not only possible, it is absolutely your choice and within your complete control. And you can KNOW that you have believed.
Here's an example. You are in a burning building 3 floors up. You are trapped in the window. Below you is the fire department. They are holding a big net and calling for you to jump to safety. They are assuring you that if you jump they will catch you.
OK, do you ask yourself "Do I believe the fire department?? Do I have faith in the fire department? If I fail to believe will they miss me?
Of course not. You would look at the large net. You would look at the strong fireman who are calling for you to jump. In reality, you would be asking questions like, "Is that net big enough, or strong enough to catch me? Will the firemen miss me if I jump? You would be questioning the firemen, not yourself.
Now that is a silly example, but that is what you are doing. You are asking yourself, "Do I have faith? Is my faith real? Do I have enough faith? Why do I doubt?" But you would not be questioning yourself in a fire, you would be questioning the firemen and their equipment.
You are looking the wrong direction.
Look at Jesus and ask, "Does Jesus lie? Will Jesus trick me? Is Jesus able to save me? Now you are asking the right questions. And I bet you know the answer to these questions
without a doubt.
Now, back to the fire. You see the firemen and the net below. You are scared plenty. You are indeed afraid they might miss you. But you consider the alternative and decide the only choice is to jump and place your life in their hands.
So, you jump.
Do you see what you did there? You made a choice. You just entrusted your life to those firemen, regardless of how you felt emotionally. And it is not something mysterious experience you cannot figure out. I mean, you jumped. You put your life in their hands. This is not a maybe thing, you know
for certain.
And it is the same with Jesus. To believe on Jesus simply means to place your eternal soul
in His hands. It is a decision. Jesus has already promised to save you if you come to him, just as the firemen promised to catch you if you jumped. It is exactly the same.
Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
Do you see what Jesus did here? He placed his spirit into his Father's hands. That is what believeing means. It means to trust, to lean upon, to look to, to rely upon, to commit one's self to, to depend upon, to RISK yourself to.
Lots of people get it all backwards. They say you have to perservere, or hold on to the end, and never doubt. WRONG.
To believe means to completely
LET GO. It means to
quit trying. It means to
jump and trust Jesus to catch you. It means to place your soul in Jesus's hands and let it go at that. If Jesus doesn't get you to heaven, then you are a goner.
Just tell Jesus that you give yourself to him, and then let go and depend on Jesus to get you to heaven as he promised.
And you can know for a certainty if it is your will or choice to give yourself to Jesus. You wouldn't be worried about all this if it was not your desire to be saved.
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me;
and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.