05.02. CHAPTER 02 Assurance of Salvation
CHAPTER 2 Assurance of Salvation
Some believers can remember very clearly the exact date and time when they were born again. But I cannot. In fact I don’t even know in which year I was born again. That does not mean that being born again is a gradual process. It is not. Passing from death to life in Christ takes place in an instant. But many people like me who were born and brought up in God-fearing Christian homes, cannot pinpoint the exact moment when that miracle took place. That is because many who are like me, ask the Lord to come into their heart, many, many times and we can’t say which of those times was the real one.
If I remember rightly, I asked the Lord to come into my heart for the first time, when I was about 13. But I did not know whether He had come in or not, because I did not feel or experience anything, when I prayed. So I kept on asking the Lord to come into my heart again and again – perhaps over a hundred times during the next few years – but each time I felt nothing! And so I did not know whether I was saved or not. As long as I was at home, the restraints imposed on me by my parents kept me from many worldly forms of entertainment like the cinema etc., But once I joined the military academy and the Indian Navy, I was on my own and such restraints were gone. Gradually I became a worldly Christian who went to church only as a matter of habit – and not out of any conviction. But one good thing came out of my trying out the world’s entertainments. I discovered that everything the world had to offer was empty and hollow – incapable of satisfying me in a lasting way. One day, in July 1959, as I was sitting in my room in the Naval Base at Cochin and thinking about all this and reading the Bible, I came to John 6:37, where Jesus said, “I will certainly not cast out anyone who comes to me”. I had read that verse many times before. But that day it struck me forcefully - and I believed it. I knew that I had come to the Lord many times. I suddenly realized that if I had done my part, Jesus must have done His part – He must have received me. It was then that I realized that unbelief was the greatest sin (See John 16:9). For if I did not believe God’s word, I was then making Him out to be a liar - and that was the greatest insult anyone could give to God. So, after 6 years of being tossed about, I believed - and I was sure that I was saved. What did I learn from my experience? Two things.
First of all, that when you are not sure of your salvation, it is very easy to get discouraged and to backslide.
Secondly, that faith is a gift of God. I was 19 years old when I first got assurance of my salvation. More than 46 years have passed since that day, but I have never once doubted my salvation. I have doubted many other things in these years, but I have never doubted my salvation. I dropped an anchor that day on the ground of God’s infallible Word and my ship has never drifted since then. I have been battered by many fierce storms in these years, and my ship has swung wildly at times, but my anchor has held. How can I explain that? I can only say that God gave me the grace to “believe” His Word that day. Even faith is a gift of God. So we cannot glory even in our faith. All we can do is humbly glorify God.