I’d like to share a little bit about my history and how God has chosen to sovereignly work in and through the events he has ordained in my life. The title of this article speaks to two biblical truths: 1. what true faith looks like and, 2. how true faith/salvation comes about. As I recall the events of my own life and how I came to know the Lord savingly, it will be clear why these things are of deep significance to me. My prayer is that these truths are, or may become, significant to those who are reading this, as well. As with everything that I write, my main goal is that God would be glorified through my writing, and that he might will to use it for the advancement of his kingdom.
I grew up attending church regularly. I was taught that I only needed to ‘ask Jesus into my heart’ in order to be a true Christian and receive the gift of salvation. Sadly, I find this to be overwhelmingly common in the modern church which is generally quite heavy on ‘seeker sensitivity’ and disturbingly light on biblical theology. I was persuaded to believe that if I did this, my name would be written in the Lamb’s book of life and could never be erased. That’s it. It was that simple. It sounded good to me. And so, I asked Jesus into my heart at an early age, and then I proceeded to live a life totally contrary to God’s word. I had no regard for His commands, no intention to repent, and no interest in a life of obedience to Him. At the time, my main motivations for praying that prayer were the desire to avoid hell, the general belief that being a Christian was good, and, frankly, all the other kids were doing it. I suppose at the age of 9 when I prayed that prayer I was, at least by some standard, ‘young and innocent’. But as the years passed, my innocence and ignorance could no longer be validated as any sort of excuse for the life that I was living – a life of rampant sin, with not a care in the world for what that sin really represented – a cold, dead heart. Early in my thirties, after many years of struggling with excessive alcohol use and various other worldly passions, I found myself at a crossroads. I was a mother now, and it pained me to imagine my life continuing in the direction that it was seemingly bound. I felt like a prisoner in so many ways, and I wanted freedom. My husband and I began attending church regularly. (I had attended sporadically from age 18-30). I believe it was nothing less than divine intervention that caused me to fall into a new habit a couple of years later: reading God’s Word. The book of first John is one of the very first things that the Lord led to me read. When I got to chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, everything I had ever thought I understood about ‘being saved’ or ‘being a Christian’ was completely shattered by what I read. It says:
“and by this we know that we have come to know [God], if we keep His commandments. Whoever says “I know Him”, but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the Truth is not in him.” (1 Jn 2:3-4)
I cannot even begin to explain how totally earth shattering this was for me. I had lived my whole life with the false assumption that I was a Christian because I had prayed a prayer one time when I was nine. But God used this verse to show me with absolute certainty that I was NOT a Christian. I was the liar of 1 John 2:4. In that moment, everything changed for me. My life did not literally experience a drastic change overnight, but in accordance with His will, Almighty God was setting me on a new course from that point on.
When I think about my present life in Christ and the freedom that I have found in Him, I always think back to that event. I know those precious words that I needed to hear did not come to me by chance or luck. I also know that I could have read those words with a deaf ear, turning a blind eye to the truth that God has written. I know that God deserves all the credit for waking me out of my darkened slumber and bringing me into the light.
God has allowed me to grow so much since that providential day when he opened my eyes. I have grown in my understanding of who God is and what His Word says about ‘being a Christian’. This brings me to my first main point: what does saving faith look like?
The Obedience of Faith
I now know with full and firm conviction that there is no such thing as saving faith apart from true, genuine repentance. The two go hand in hand, and it can be no other way. Throughout scripture, God clearly reveals that true faith is evidenced by obedience that flows from a repentant heart. I now know that my obedience is one of the primary purposes of my faith, just as Paul speaks of in the first chapter of what is arguably one of the greatest theological treatises in all of scripture – the book of Romans. Paul says that all who are called through Christ, “have received…grace…to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name” (Rm 1:5). I now have a deep appreciation for the words of Psalm 25:10, “The Lords leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his covenant and obey his demands”. Jesus says himself that obedience is a sign that we truly love him (John 14:15). “You may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him”, 1 John 2:29. The first 30 years of my life were most certainly not characterized by practicing righteousness, yet I was ignorant to believe that it didn’t matter. I had prayed ‘the prayer’!
Not only was I not saved, I was deceived into thinking that I actually was. The truth is, God has never desired to save anyone so that they will continue to walk in the futility of their minds, following the course of this world (Eph 2:1-3). To do so, as I once did, is to be ignorant of the truth that sets one free. This is not to say that in being saved we are wiped totally clean of the capacity and desire to sin. But what God does in saving a person is to give that person a new, regenerated heart. In doing so, He instills within that person the desire to live a life of true faith, a life that is set apart to Him and marked by obedience to His commands. This is not a shallow, dead, easy-believism, lip service ‘faith’ as mine once was, the hypocritical faith such as Isaiah spoke of, saying “This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me”. As a new creation with a new heart, true faith is a living faith. One with a hunger and thirst for righteousness. Our obedience to God will be undoubtedly flawed, yet undeniably present – in a clear way that it did not exist prior to our being saved.
Faithful Obedience: A Work of Grace
One of my favorite passages in scripture is Ezekiel 36:25-28. Through the prophet Ezekiel God speaks glorious promises of His providence for His people: “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people and I will be your God.” (Ez 36:25-28, emphasis added). It is clear from this passage that God sets into motion a drastic change in the hearts and lives of the people whom he calls to himself. A change that affects every part of our being, including the way we think, the way we talk, the way we act, and the way we desire to live. This new heart that God puts in us can no longer be satisfied with the things that characterized our old nature! It is important to understand though, that this work is a literal promise that is guaranteed by the grace of God, not merely a prescriptive command for us to attempt to work in ourselves. If we mistakenly think in the latter, we will find obedience to be joyless and burdensome, which is far from God’s intention. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome”, 1 John 5:3. If we do not delight in obeying God, this could be a sign that we either do not understand His love for us, or a sign that we do not truly belong to Him through saving faith. By God’s grace, he causes his people to want to live obediently to him, and this obedience should bring us joy. My own lack of desire for obedience was a clear indication that I was not saved, despite having a very strong, albeit false, sense that I actually was saved.
Biblical Assurance
In contrast to the false assurance I once had, I now live with great confidence that I am saved. I can see very real evidence that God has given me a new heart. There are a multitude of reasons that I have this assurance, and I am thankful to be able to confidently assert that they are all biblical reasons. My old heart had no concern for obedience, but my new heart is characterized by new desires that are in accordance with my new nature. I have a great zeal and passion for reading God’s word and studying theology. I actually enjoy and look forward to worshipping God on Sunday mornings, whereas I previously attended church for all the wrong reasons. I now hate the sinful things that I once loved. I have a deep desire to turn from sin and do that which is honorable in God’s sight. When I think or act sinfully now, I am burdened with a heavy conscience and filled with a spirit of contrition – things that were foreign to me when I was still walking according to the flesh. God himself has turned (and will continue to further turn) my will to be more in accordance with his own will (Prov 21:1, Phil 2:13). I find myself genuinely and frequently asking God to lead and guide me in his will, instead just living out my own will. I cannot help but want to walk in my God’s statutes and be careful to obey His rules, precisely because he has ordained it to be this way (Ez 36:26).
The Outward Sign, the Inward Reality
In the past, I was living with a false assurance of salvation. My old nature wanted to avoid hell, but had no desire for holiness, nor any intention to give up my sinful ways. There is nothing ‘set apart’ about wanting to avoid hell. Everyone wants that, unsurprisingly. But no one will ever escape hell just by saying that they ‘believe in God’ or by the outward action of parroting a prayer, as I had done, without the inward condition of the heart being changed. Even the demons “believe”! James 2:19. There is only one way that myself or anyone else can escape hell, and that is by the supernatural regenerating work of God’s free grace that He bestows upon a person when He puts His Spirit into that person and thus changes their very nature. We must be changed. Really, truly, changed in a way that is evidenced by repentance and new desires. I am convinced that too often, people are persuaded that all they need to be saved is the outward sign of a prayer, maybe coupled with some church attendance, a few good deeds, etc. And although praying a prayer may, for some people, be a very real part of this supernatural event, it certainly doesn’t cause it or guarantee it! There is no scriptural basis according to which we should offer a person a guarantee that they will be regenerated or saved if they simply ‘ask Jesus into their heart’, or repeat a prayer. Instead, we should look to scripture to help people understand what the fruit of true faith is. We should point them to the Bible to receive assurance of their faith. When scripture exhorts a person to test their faith, it says nothing of trying to recall a time when they made a declaration of said faith through the praying of a prayer. Thankfully, the bible is quite clear about how we can know that we are really “in the faith” (2 Cor 13:5). In fact, the whole book of first John was written for this purpose. First John 5:13 says “I write these things to you….so that you may know that you have eternal life.” So rather than running the risk that we may actually contribute to false assurance, we should allow God to speak for himself, which is exactly what the scriptures do! No one needs to be persuaded to pray a prayer. Everyone needs to hear God’s word. “Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17).
Born Again: How True Faith Comes About
In the third chapter of John, Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus about eternal life. “truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of the water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” A careful examination of John 3:3-15 reveals that to be born again is something that God must do in us and for us, not something that we can do for ourselves. We do nothing to initiate or effect this process, just as we have no control over the wind and when or where it blows. Jesus makes this comparison of the wind to the Spirit’s work when he says that “the wind blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” When we speak of being ‘born again’, we are talking about regeneration. Regeneration is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and it is key to the gospel of Jesus Christ: that Christ came to do for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. In Christ’s soteriological work, he had to deal with the problem of our fallen nature. All men who are born into this world are affected by the spiritual condition that is known as original sin. This is a dire condition that results in our total depravity and spiritual death. It also results in our eventual and inevitable physical death (with the exception of those who are living at the (future) time of Jesus second coming and thus will not experience physical death). We have no power or ability to alter our fallen state or its effects. This is what Christ came to do: to redeem us from this fallen state of spiritual death and give us spiritual life. This spiritual life is what we receive when we are ‘born again’. Our first birth results in physical life, and our new birth or re-birth results in spiritual life. We have no control over either of these births! This is why John tells us that God’s children are born “not of blood (not a physical birth), nor of the will of the flesh (not because of my own will), nor of the will of man (not because I have been persuaded), but of God” (emphasis mine).
Monergism
Along these same lines, it is interesting to notice that in the passage from Ezekiel that I previously referenced, God says seven times “I will”. I am humbled to know that my salvation in entirely of God. My awakening, my being brought out of the darkness and into the light, my heart and my mind being given the ability to see the truth, my transformation, my salvation, all of these things are ALL God’s work. All of these things were part of God’s monergistic work of salvation in my life. I did not have the power or ability to open my own eyes to the truth. I did not have the ability to bring my own heart to repentance. If it were left up to me, I would never have been released from the prison that I once lived in – the prison that we all, whether we realize it or not, are living in prior to God setting us free. Despite having ‘asked Jesus into my heart’, I didn’t have the ability to cause myself to be born again, nor does anyone else. Only God has the keys to open the door to the prison of our fallen nature and allow us to go free. Only He, according to His great mercy, can cause us to be born again. Only He can bring to life that which is dead. I am saved by grace alone, and it is not my own doing (Ephesians 2:4-8). God is totally sovereign in my rebirth. I am not saying this because it’s how I ‘feel’ my salvation came about. (In fact, it took me years to come to the realization that God had saved me all by Himself and all for Himself.) Everything that I am describing is what God has revealed in scripture about salvation. First Peter 1:4 sums it up perfectly: “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (ESV, emaphasis mine).
Of his own will he brought me forth (James 1:18). “It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all”, John 6:63. I have come to know the Lord truly, savingly. I have come to know him because he chose to know me. He has drawn me to himself, according to the purpose of his will (Eph 1).
In Retrospect
Looking back, there was a time when I actually felt a little bit angry about all of the years that I spent in ignorance, having believed that my lip-service salvation was actually of any eternal value. But I know now that God’s timing is always perfect, as is every event of every person’s life that He ordains to come to pass. It is God who draws His people to Himself and opens their eyes to have faith, just as it was God who caused my eyes to be opened and gave me ears to hear when He caused me to open the book of first John at the perfect time all those years ago. And if you are reading this article right now, it is in accordance with God’s perfect providence that you are doing so.
Over the last 8 years or so, I have experienced much spiritual growth, and my understanding of who God is has undergone immense maturation and development. However, I am in every respect far from perfect. Please know this: every day I must repent, because sin is still present in my life. The marked difference now, in comparison to my prior many many years of false assurance, is that I HATE that sin and I am continually driven to confession and repentance. I relate fully to Paul’s words in Romans 8:23 when he says that we “groan inwardly….as we wait for the redemption of our bodies”. Oh do I ever groan over my sin. I can’t wait for the day when my Savior will return to complete the restorative work that He has begun in me. His Spirit who dwells in me now is the **guarantee of the inheritance that I know I will one day receive – the glorified body, the absence of sin, the full and perfect experience of my redemption in Christ Jesus and perfect union with Him forever (Ephesians 1:14). This life right now is hard. Being a Christian doesn’t make it easier. If anything, it makes it harder. Temptation is hard, and the world is full of it. I am constantly battling the world, the flesh, and the devil. But with my mind set on eternity and my heart full of God’s promises, I aim to press on and to live each day with steady confidence in this: that “He who began a good work in [me] will bring it to completion”, (Philippians 1:6).
I daily throw myself on the mercies of God. And if you do not yet know the Lord, but feel as though you want to know Him savingly, this would be my advice to you: Read your Bible. Ask God to draw you to Himself. Ask Him to do a supernatural work in you. Rather than pray a prayer that is not found in scripture, one where you supposedly ‘accept’ Jesus, pray and ask God to accept you as His own! Ask Him to save you. Call upon His name. Humbly recognize your sinful state of spiritual death, admit your spiritual poverty (inability to do anything to save yourself) and need for Jesus to be your Savior and your Lord. Throw yourself on the mercies of God, and in the words of Luke 18:13, cry out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”.
*If my experience resonates with you, (or even if it doesn’t!) and you’d like to read more about how God brought me to Him, here is a link to my full testimony.
**If you do not feel that your salvation is secure, you may find this article helpful, titled; “Salvation Gained and Then….Lost??”. The last thing that I want to do is to cause someone who is saved to doubt their salvation.
Soli deo gloria!