Help, I Still Don't Know That I Am Saved

By God's grace alone, I KNOW beyond any shadow of a doubt that I am going to Heaven—not because of anything I have done, but because of what Jesus Christ did to pay my debt of sins on Calvary's cross 2,000 years ago. JESUS PAID IT ALL!!!

I first felt convicted that I was lost at age 13. It was a Sunday morning in an old-fashioned Baptist church on Chicago's northside. The pastor said if you can sin without having any Holy Spirit conviction whatsoever, then you're not saved. I knew immediately that I wasn't saved. So, that morning from my pew, I called out silently in my heart and asked Jesus to saved me. I believed that I was asking a risen Savior, who died on the cross to pay for my sins, to be saved that day, and He did.

Unfortunately, since I was too scared to walk the aisle to find out how to be saved, I didn't know what had just happened and I was confused. I agree with Pastor Max Younce (1935-2023) who hated when preachers require lost sinners to walk down an aisle to learn how to go to Heaven. Dr. Younce rightly contends that every preacher should tell people how to be saved right from their pew. I wish to God that the pastor that day had done so, but he didn't, he required people to walk an aisle to learn how to be saved. Since I had grown up in Sunday school and attended random churches with my Mom (my Dad didn't go to church), I knew enough about the Gospel to be saved; but I didn't fully understand what God expected of me, so I suffered much worry, doubt and fear. Here is the free .pdf format version of Pastor Younce's helpful book, "SALVATION AND THE PUBLIC INVITATION" (backup).

That book helped to solidify my salvation beliefs around 2005. I had already stopped doubting my salvation about 15 years earlier, but I still didn't have perfect peace about my salvation. Dr. Younce explains that you can be saved by simply BELIEVING the Gospel (Good News) that Jesus died on a cross for our sins, was buried, and bodily resurrected three days later (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). Tragically, the Gospel has been embellished and messed with in 95% of today's Bible colleges and churches, hindering people from receiving the new birth. By God's grace, I wrote a 42 chapter book about my own salvation saga—sharing my fears, doubts, uncertainties and how God eventually helped me to find the perfect peace of soul which I wanted so desperately.

Dear reader, if you haven't read it yet, please read Michael P. Bowen's helpful book, "I NEVER KNEW YOU." If nothing else, please read the introduction and first chapter. This book will give you a solid foundation of what the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is, and is not.

I also encourage you to read "WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?," a wonderful Gospel tract by Pastor Harry Ironside (1876-1951). I love Dr. Ironside, he pastored the famous Moody Church in Chicago from 1930 to 1948.

Also, you might want to read "ANOTHER GOSPEL" by Pastor Ironside.

I am confident that these resources will definitely help you settle the assurance of God's free gift of salvation dear friend. I worried for several years, crying often, not sure that I was going to Heaven. Like many other folks, I prayed and asked Jesus to save me more than 50 times, following every religious tract I could find to read, but still felt that I might not be saved. It drove me bananas! In hindsight (which they say is 20/20), I now realize that I had been woefully deceived by every preacher and tract I had read, by being required to pray a Sinner's Prayer to be saved. I learned from Pastor Younce, in his book above SALVATION AND THE PUBLIC INVITATION, that you don't need to pray, ask or call to be saved, you can simply BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (Acts 16:30-31).

I had never heard any preacher tell me that before. It was so simple. I had somehow known it all my Christian life, but it didn't register in my brain until I actually hear Dr. Younce say it. God is already offering us eternal life as a free gift (Romans 5:15-18). So, it is pointless to ask God to give us what He is already freely offering to us, by faith in His only begotten Son. John 20:31, "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." God authored the Gospel of John to try to convince us that Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten Son of God, so that by BELIEVING ON JESUS we would be saved. The only requirement to be saved in the book of John is to BELIEVE. The word "believe" is mentioned 85 times in John. Something very different is being preached in most churches today.

I visited the First Baptist Church of Pensacola several months ago, which is one of 45,000 Southern Baptist churches (they pay $50,000 each year to belong to the SBC). I am against the SBC. Their senior pastor Dave Snyder asked a 12 year old boy to stand up, and said that he had been saved that morning by "becoming a Christ follower." That was it. That's all he said how the boy got saved. That is tragic, because you don't get saved by following Christ. The false prophets in Matthew 7:21-23, whom Jesus said He didn't know as His sheep, whom He called "workers of iniquity" FOLLOWED CHRIST. They boasted of their "many wonderful works," even calling Jesus "Lord, Lord" (there's the heresy of Lordship Salvation exposed in the Bible). Unfortunately they had never ceased from their own human works, to REST in Christ's redemptive work alone (Hebrews 4:10-11). Jesus said the only "work" we can do to be saved is to BELIEVE ON HIM (John 6:28-29).

In nearly every Baptist church today I hear the Satanic lie that you must first be willing to reform (to turn from your sinning) to be saved, which is a counterfeit plan of salvation. Turning from sin is strictly a matter of Christian SERVICE, not SALVATION. Pastor M.R. DeHaan gets it 100% right...

"There is a vast difference between coming to Jesus for salvation and coming after Jesus for service. Coming to Christ makes one a believer, while coming after Christ makes one a disciple. All believers are not disciples. To become a believer one accepts the invitation of the Gospel, to be a disciple one obeys the challenge to a life of dedicated service and separation. Salvation comes through the sacrifice of Christ; discipleship comes only by sacrifice of self and surrender to His call for devoted service. Salvation is free, but discipleship involves paying the price of a separated walk. Salvation can't be lost because it depends upon God's faithfulness, but discipleship can be lost because it depends upon our faithfulness." —Pastor M.R. DeHaan, “Hebrews”; Zondervan Publishing House; 1959 (p. 117)

Amen and amen! If you realize you are a guilty sinner in God's sight (Romans 3:19-20), and your only hope for Heaven is Jesus' death, burial and resurrection, then you are saved (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). The Gospel itself is the POWER OF GOD unto salvation to all them that BELIEVE (Romans 1:16; 1st Corinthians 1:21). The Gospel is "the simplicity that is in Christ" (2nd Corinthians 11:3-4). God had to make getting saved simple, because there's a lot of ignorant, base and low intelligence people in the world. It is so simple to be saved that even a small child can be saved (Mark 10:14).

I welcome questions if you have any. I hope you will take the time to read through some of the materials I have shared with you, which I know will help you find the peace of salvation. I was saved all the years that I worried, praying over 50 times for God to save me. I was already saved, but I couldn't nail it down. That may be where you're at now. My book on SALVATION will help you, from learning the same Bible truths that helped me. People fear what they don't know. Walking in the dark is scary, because we don't know what may be lurking in the darkness. Likewise, we fear missing Heaven, not because we aren't saved, but because no one has ever taken the time to properly explain the Gospel. Many born-again saints, like myself for several years, worry that they might not be saved. Preachers are to blame. Tragically, 99% of preachers today simply don't know how to properly present the Gospel.

When I was 17 years old, I went to my pastor and told him I couldn't settle my salvation. He wrongly assumed that since I didn't know I am saved, I must not be. I wish he hadn't done that, because instead of helping me understand God's simple plan of salvation, he just slapped a Band-Aid over the problem. Then he did the worst thing he could have done, he led me in another Sinner's Prayer (which I had already done over 50 times on my own). He told me I was now saved. He called my parents to tell them I am saved. He told the whole church I am saved. I was water baptized weeks later, scared to death that I still didn't know I was saved. And now I was reluctant to tell anybody that I still didn't know I was saved, because I'd look like a fool.

It wasn't until I learned many years later that I didn't have to pray at all to be saved, I could have simply BELIEVED. Acts 16:30-31, "And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Paul and Silas didn't tell the Philippian Roman jailer to pray a Sinner's Prayer. They didn't tell him to turn from his sins, confess Christ publicly, get water baptized or anything else, but simply to BELIEVE ON THE NAME OF JESUS.

If you know that you are a guilty sinner in God's sight, and you believe (rely upon) the facts that Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten Son of God—who died on a cross, was buried and resurrected from the dead three days later—and this is your only hope for eternal life, you are saved dear friend. Faith is the only righteous thing that I can do.