Do you wonder if you are really saved?

Believers in Christ, have you ever wondered if you are really saved? Do you wonder if our Heavenly Father hears your prayers? Do you examine your life and wonder if you will be caught up with the saints when our Lord Jesus returns? Do you think that you will be left behind when the trumpet sounds?

These thoughts are akin to what John Kennedy Jr. felt before he died in a plane crash. Right before he crashed his plane into the sea, he experienced a confusion that pilots call vertigo - a disorientation that arises within pilots as they struggle with reason and emotion regarding direction while flying. He lost his sense of direction. Visibility was low. Kennedy was flying downwards and into the sea but his mind told him that he was sitting in an upright position! At the same moment he was feeling perfectly right-side up, his aircraft instruments told him that the nose of his plane was pointing downwards! 

What to believe!

Kennedy decided to go with his reasoning/emotions. He discarded his aircraft instruments' signals. He must have told himself over and over "This instrument must be faulty. I know that I'm sitting and flying upright. I can feel it!" But he was wrong. He piloted his aircraft to a downward spiral into the sea - and death!

Believers, we need to trust in what our Instrument - the Word of God - says! We need to stop doing and start believing. Our emotions and reasoning lead us astray all the time but the Word of God never fails. John 3:16 tells us that "...whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe that He died for you and has paid the full price for all of your sins? Do you believe that God loves you and has made you His righteousness in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21)? Then you have everlasting life, even though don't feel it or don't "have it all together" right now.

Do you believe the Holy Spirit-inspired words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4: 16 "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, WE WHO ARE STILL ALIVE AND REMAIN ON THE EARTH will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words."

I put some words in caps for emphasis. Did you notice that Paul said "we who are still alive and remain on the earth" and not "we who are fasting, praying, keeping ourselves from sin and obeying the law so that we can make heaven and get God to bless us on earth?" While these things are commendable, doing them can never make one righteous in God's sight, according Romans 3:20. In fact, they have the opposite effect of cutting one off from Christ who died to make us righteous! According to Galatians 5:4 says "For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

The criteria for being caught up with Christ (rapture) is to believe in Him and be alive and remain on the earth when it happens. This is what our Instrument says. Your mind, other people and circumstances might tell you that it takes much more on your part. But whose report do you believe? This is Grace - undeserved unmerited favour. It does take much more - a 'much more' that Jesus has already done for us.

Believers, believe the Instrument - the Word of God- and not your emotions and human reasoning.

Because you believe in Jesus, you have been made righteous in Him (not by your works but as a gift - Romans 5:17), even though you don't feel it: 2 Corinthians 5:21 "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

Because the Lord is our Righteousness and not what we do or don't do, there is therefore now no condemnation for you in Him (Romans 8:1). God hates sin and what it does to His people. Don't fret about that sin that has you on lockdown or if you are still held down by some sinful habits. As it was with the woman caught in adultery, our Lord's gift of no condemnation makes us go and sin no more.

Because you believe in Jesus, there is no generational or any other curse hanging over your head, even though people tell you differently: Galatians 3- 13 "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

When you believe that there is still some curse hanging over your head and you start doing things to break these curses or get right with God, you are denying that Christ has already set you free from the curse and make Christ of no effect in your life! Galatians 5:4 "For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

We do things that please God because we are saved - it's automatic. We don't do them in order to be saved. If you're doing them in order to please God, you will always fall short - and Christ is become of no effect unto you. His grace is not a license to sin. It is our ticket out of a sinful lifestyle.

Believers, because of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, we are already in right standing with our Lord God. Our Saviour Jesus made sure of this by paying the penalty for our sins! Nothing we do or don't do can change this position of favour that we are in because we didn't earn it to begin with!

Believe the Instrument - the Word of God - and not human reasoning. 

Believe Right and you will Live Right!