Chapter 16: How to test whether you are saved?

Picture this scene. The Son of Man has come in His glory. All the angels are with Him. He is sitting on His glorious throne. All the nations are gathered before Him. The sheep are on His right. The goats are on His left (Mt 25:31-33).

To your surprise, you find that you are on His left!

"How could this be?" you ask yourself in dumb amazement. You were sure that you were saved. In anger, you raise your hand and scream, "Wait a minute. This is not fair."

Suddenly, everyone becomes silent. All eyes turn towards you. With a determined look in your eyes you walk up to the glorious throne. You take a deep breath and address Jesus, "How come you let me go through my whole life thinking that I was saved when I wasn’t? If you really loved me, why didn’t you give me a way to find out whether I was really saved?"

Jesus scratches his head. "Oops," He replies, "You are right. I didn’t think of that. Okay, you can come to my right hand side."

End of wishful thinking. Now come back to reality.

Such a thing, with all certainty, is never going to happen. It is not going to happen precisely because God has given us a way to find out whether we are saved. If we don’t use it, it is our fault, not His.

You know, the Day of Judgment will be a day of surprises. Given that Jesus said that few will be saved, and given that so many proclaim to be in Christ, it is inevitable that many, and not just some, will be surprised to find that they are not among the saved.

Truly, one of the saddest things that will happen on the Day of Judgment is that many people will find out that God does not consider them to be saved. This is clear from Mt 7:21-23, Mt 25:31-46, and Lk 13:25-30. There will be people who thought that they were saved. They thought that they were going to heaven. But finally, they will end up in hell. Many who are first will be last. And many who were thought to be in will be out. And no one will have an excuse for his or her surprise.

We need to make sure that we are not surprised regarding our eternal destiny on that day. Our salvation is the most important thing. If, on that day, we find that we have lost our soul, everything else will be irrelevant. It is better that we test ourselves now to determine whether we are saved. If we find that we are not saved then we can do something about it before it is too late.

Given the importance of our eternal destiny, it is only natural for God to give us a means of determining whether we are really saved. And indeed, He has given us such means. In fact, God commands us to test ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2 Cor 13:5).

How do we test ourselves? That is the subject of this chapter.

The Bible gives us several tests to determine whether we are saved. These tests are in addition to the requirements for salvation. This is because the obvious tests are to ask ourselves whether we meet the requirements for salvation. Let us now see what these additional tests are.

Does the world love you?

The first test is to ask yourself whether the world loves you or hates you. Let us look at Jn 15:18-21.

Jn 15:18-21 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me."

According to Jn 15:18-21, we can be in only one of two camps. We can either be of the world or of Christ. Every person is either of the world or of Christ. There is no middle ground.

Also according to Jn 15:18-21, the world loves its own people and hates those who are of Christ. Therefore, if the world loves you then you do not belong to Christ.

The world here consists of those who practice the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life (1Jn 2:15,16). In other words, the world consists of those who are unrepentant. So you see, this test ties with the requirement of repentance. The unrepentant love those who are unrepentant but hate those who are repentant. They express their hate by scoffing and mocking or doing worse things to those who are of Christ. As Christians, we must expect and endure their persecution. That is why Paul told Timothy that all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus (that is, all those who are repentant) will be persecuted (2 Tm 3:12).

If you have been a Christian for a while, living amongst non-Christians (and sometimes, these non-Christians may actually claim to be Christians), and have never faced persecution in even the slightest form while interacting with them then you must seriously ask yourself whether you are of Christ or of the world.