How do you know?

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love;” John 15:10

Two weeks before I was saved, I heard a pastor say at the end of a service, “If you know you are saved and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are going to    Heaven, raise your hand”. I looked to the left and right and saw people raise their hands. I thought to myself, there is no way you can know for sure if you are going to Heaven. Two weeks later, I was born again. God removed the scales from my eyes and turned a heart of stone into a heart of flesh.

How do you know that you are saved? Let me ask you three questions.

First question. Do you love Jesus?

If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed.     1 Cor 16:22

Second question. Do you obey His commands?

And by this we know that we have come to know Him,  if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His  commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;  but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. 1 John 2:3-6

Third question. Do you love fellow believers?

We know that we have passed out of death into life,  because we love the brothers. The one who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has        eternal life abiding in him. By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide  in him? 1 John 3:14-17

If you did not answer yes to all three questions, you are not a follower of Jesus Christ. This is not my opinion or the opinion of others but is the declared truth from Scripture. Understand that as mere men and women, we will never be able to keep all of His commandments all the time, but there is the desire to keep them and repentance when we don’t. If you say you love Jesus but not the church (other believers), you don’t know the Jesus of Scripture. People who claim to be believers but don’t belong to a local body so they can serve God and His followers are self-deceived. Why would any Christian not want to be a part of what Jesus loves, His bride, the Church? The truth is if we love Jesus, we will love the Church, and we will obey His commands. When you are a Christian, you will bear the fruit of a believer. A Christian will produce fruit that represents their faith in Christ, not the fruit of an unbeliever.

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark