How Do I Know I’m Saved?

Since my early twenties, I’ve taken a great interest in grace. Once an elder in a church, that I was talking with about interviewing for their open ministry position, asked me, “What is your preaching like?”   I didn’t hesitate in giving him an answer.  I said, “I’m grace-oriented and cross centered.”  Of course that really doesn’t say much about the content of my preaching, but it does establish something of a direction.

Shortly after I moved to Iowa, I got acquainted with Monroe and Julia Hawley, from Milwaukee.   They’ve spent fifty plus years with the same congregation in Milawukee.  Monroe serves on the board at the Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp, which in turn hosts the annual Mid-West Preacher’s Workshop.  Monroe called me to ask me if I would make a presentation at the workshop.  After I got into the study, I wondered whether we were really going to be friends out not, because he saddled me with a highly controversial topic.

Over the years I’ve presented at the retreat on several occasion – the last one being in 2009 (if memory serves me correctly).   It didn’t take me long to realize that Monroe chose me to be one of his resource persons when he wanted to take on some pretty difficult issues.  I’m not sure why I was chosen to do this, but I always agreed to take it on.  In all fairness to Monroe, if he ever put himself on the program, he would be willing to take on hot topics himself.  As a result, a friendship developed between Monroe and Julia, Ann and me.

One day I told Monroe that I had just completed a 13 week sermon series on grace.  Monroe said, “We don’t have very many published materials on that subject written by people in our fellowship.  Why don’t  you turn it into a book?”   I started on the project right away and in a little more than a year, I had a book manuscript ready.

The Gospel Advocate expressed an interest in publishing it.  If you’ve never written a book, you can’t begin to know how mentally taxing it is to get one ready for publication.   All the time you’re writing, you’re facing deadlines, so it requires more discipline than I normally have.  Eventually I submitted the manuscript, and I think I was surprised when a representative of the Gospel Advocate called to say that he was shipping me ten books.  At first I will a little miffed because I was being sent ten books I hadn’t ordered, and I wasn’t sure I could pay for them.  Gradually it began to dawn on me that he was sending me ten copies of my book, and I would not be paying for them.  That was heady stuff.

The book probably sold better than any book I’ve written, but in all honesty, John Grisham doesn’t have to worry about me taking away from the sales of his books.

The Gospel Advocate chose to title the book, How Do I Know I’m Saved?  The book is a response to the insecurity that Christian sometimes feel about their salvation.  I’ve been concerned because many precious brothers and sisters come to the end of life worrying about whether they have done enough to be saved.  The premise of the book is that salvation is not a reward for perfect performance, but a gift that God bestows on those who are believe that Jesus died on the cross for them, who trust the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, and who determine in their hearts to walk in the light.  According to 1 John 1:7, those who walk in the light are kept clean by the blood of Jesus.  

Once a one lady on her death bed who said to me, “I want to go to heaven, but I’m not sure I’ve done enough.”  I said, “You haven’t done enough, but you’re going to heaven because you’re God’s child and Jesus died on the cross for you.”  At that point she asked me to sing, “How Great Thou Art.”   I gave the greatest vocal performance of my life in that hospital room.  When I finished she laid her head back on the pillow and went to sleep.  She left this life a few days later, and I’m confident she went to be with the Lord. 

The day the books came, there was ice on the parking lot, and the postman left the books at the dentist’s office next door to our building.  I walked across the icy parking lot, and picked up the books.  I don’t remember my feet ever touching the pavement on the way back to the church building.