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How to Know If You're Saved: The Holy Spirit


The Holy Spirit is a means of knowing you are saved.

“We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13).

“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:16-17).

God’s Spirit talks to our spirit to tell us that we belong to Him. We are His children. I cannot explain it, but to those to whom this has happened it does not need explaining.

The Holy Spirit is the present guarantee of our final salvation, the resurrection of our bodies:

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

“Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 5:5).

We either have the Spirit or we do not have the Spirit. Whoever does not have the Spirit does not belong to Christ. He is not a Christian. He is not saved.

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9).

“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

Have you been led by the Spirit? That is supernatural guidance. If you have not been led by the Spirit or if you have and do not recognize it, you should wonder if you are saved.

“For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:11-16).

The natural man may be a genius, but unless he has the Spirit of God, the Word of God is foolishness to him.

To be continued on Monday.

 

Excerpted from Assurances of Salvation, available at ccmbooks.org and Amazon.com.

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