Do You Know When You Were Saved?
— Thursday, October 27th, 2011 —
October 27 is an important date for me.
On that day, many years ago, I was a young kid walking alone under a starry sky in my hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi. I was grappling with who I was and what my life would mean. And there, looking up into the vault of space up there overhead, I trusted a Stranger in the Night to forgive me, and to take me wherever he wanted. The gospel wasn’t new to me, and the teachings of Jesus weren’t new to me. Years and years of Sunday school and Baptist Training Union and Vacation Bible Schools were all back there. But, somehow, I just knew at that moment that the central point of all those things was true: the gospel. It was as though I heard a voice.
The reason I write this is because my story isn’t at all typical of most Christians I know, and many kind of feel guilty about that. Many believe if they really have embraced the gospel, they ought to have a moment, a date, they can point to as the instant they passed from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.
Sometimes our churches reinforce this misunderstanding. Preachers talk about assurance of salvation as though it were about remembering a past experience, and doing a mental autopsy on the sincerity of that. The people we allow to give “testimonies” in our churches and in our publications all seem to have a dramatic tale to tell.
That’s not what the gospel is about.
In our culture, we make a big-to-do about birthdays. Other cultures don’t. I could ask you right now, “When were you born” and you could probably tell me month, date, and year. But how do you know that? It’s because there were people there, usually your parents, who could tell you that information. You don’t remember emerging from the birth canal (and that’s probably a very good thing).
Other people, in other cultures at other times, don’t recognize dates but seasons. They might not know what day on the weekly calendar or what year in the solar calendar they were born. But do they then question whether they are alive? Of course not. How do you know if you were in fact born? You look to see if you’re alive…now.
It’s no accident that Jesus compares entrance into the kingdom of God to physical birth. There is a kind of helplessness that we experience in the biology and history of our births. No one can boast about an easy delivery. No one should feel guilty about prompting a Caesarean section. The important thing is that you’re here.
The same is true for the gospel. Some of you were brought to Christ suddenly and dramatically. Your past life as a prostitute or a drunk or a warlord gave way to a radically different direction as a disciple. In that, your situation is quite similar to the Apostle Paul’s. Others of you, though saved just as truly in some point in time, aren’t able to identify that time. Your memory is of a slow realization of the gospel, and you can’t necessarily pinpoint when you were converted in that time-frame. Your situation sounds more like that of Paul’s disciple Timothy. The point of the gospel isn’t celebrating an experience; it’s believing a Man who is your crucified, resurrected, reigning Life.
It’s important to mark dates as ways of prompting thanksgiving. If you know when you met Jesus, set up an Ebenezer of remembrance in your mind and be grateful. If not, be thankful for life in Christ and mark other dates when He showed himself real and faithful to you.
The crucial matter isn’t whether you remember when the Shepherd pulled you out of the thorn bushes. Maybe you were barely conscious. The critical thing is whether you hear His Voice, maybe somewhere out there in the dark in front of you, calling you forward, right now.
27 Responses to “Do You Know When You Were Saved?”
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Amen! I knew a girl in college who reminisced about being pressured to go ahead and “pray the prayer” because she didn’t know the exact date and time of her salvation. How awful! My wife can point to about 3 crucial, defining moments in her calling. She’s not entirely sure at which point she crossed over that line as a citizen in the kingdom, but that’s a beautiful thing about God; he is creative even in how he calls us. Sometimes citizens in the kingdom are brought in by official invitation; some start as resident foreigners who like it so much they ask permission to stay; some even smuggle themselves into the kingdom as illegal aliens who are shown great mercy, amnesty, and citizenship. These metaphors should not be taken *too* far, theologically! Sometimes we’re attracted; sometimes not. Sometimes we dwell a long time in and among the kingdom without being a part of it. Sometimes, almost like a “natural born citizen,” we know nothing else. God is great like that.
9/14/2001. Praise God for redeeming my sin. Let me never forget the glory of the cross. Celebrating with you.
A good reminder. One of my children has particularly wrestled with not having a dramatic salvation story. The important thing is walking with Him right now.
As one who has never been able to pinpoint my exact “rebirthday,” I’ve always appreciated this line from Doug Wilson (not entirely sure if it was his): “A man does not need to know what time the sun rose in the morning in order to know that it is up.” Thank you for the reminder. And happy birthday!
You just had to go an use the word “Ebenezer” didn’t you? Now I’ve got “Come Thou Fount” stuck in my head.
Thank you so for this statement: “The point of the gospel isn’t celebrating an experience; it’s believing a Man who is your crucified, resurrected, reigning Life.”
Thank you King Jesus for being this Man!!!
When I get that asked the question “where and when did you become saved?” my answer is “In the hills above Jerusalem, almost 2000 years ago.”
I know the date of my infant baptism in a Roman church. I know the dates of my last drug use, my last drink, and the last time I surrendered to lust. I know the date of my adult baptism in an evangelical church. Somewhere in between there, I accepted Christ’s forgiveness, turned my life over to Him, and became a new creation. I don’t know the exact date of that, if there even was one.
But as it says in Hebrews 10:10, Christ’s sacrifice was “once for all time.”
Thank you. I have wrestled at times with this for years. I can’t pinpoint a specific date, but I do know for a fact I am saved and walk daily with Him. But, nevertheless, I have struggled with guilt because I couldn’t pinpoint it, almost as if I had let Him down somehow. Personally, ungratefullness in people’s lives bothers me and I have felt that not remembering that date meant that I was somehow ungrateful. (Although I am definitely grateful for His redeeming love). Thanks again.
Good article. I can’t remember the month or day (other than a Sunday), but I was saved at five years old. I was a warlord.
David R. Brumbelow
I’ve grown up in the evangelical “bible-belt” of south Mississippi. Only 25-30 miles north of Dr. Moore and it’s a common thing here to place your assurance of salvation in a “time and place” remembering. If you can’t go to a “time and place” that you were saved then you likely aren’t. I struggled with this for years and years. I was baptized at 10 but I can’t really see any evidence of salvation until about 10-12 years ago which I believe is my actual time of conversion. But notice I say “10-12″ years ago. I can’t get it any closer than that. A dear elder, who could remember not only the time and place but which pew and EXACTLY where on the pew he was when converted, once told me that he put much more trust in the evidence he could see of God’s presence in his life yesterday than he did in any experience from 30 years before.
After thinking about my earlier comment: Salvation is always dramatic, just not dramatic in a way the world would consider dramatic. :)
I was raised Lutheran, and Lutherans didn’t talk about salvation experiences or being “born again.” We were baptized as infants and reaffirmed our baptism through confirmation–after two years of classes–in 8th grade. I have been a Christian all my life, but don’t have any particular “salvation experience.” (even though I now attend an evangelical church) I do, however, have a number of experiences where God was particularly close to me, answered a prayer, or provided for me in what I see as miraculous ways. I know I am His and will always be, and that’s good enough for me!
Dr. Moore,
Do you have any articles or resources that you would recommend to Christian parents on how to view the spiritual status of their young children? Would you hold to an “age of accountability” doctrine in which all children too young to profess personal faith in Christ are automatically saved if they die? What about a 10-year-old who dies before they make a personal commitment to Christ? What is your understanding of how the Lord deals with such children?
These are serious questions for many Christian parents.
Thanks for your time.
This reminds me of the story of the girl who asked the Bishop of Durham (no, not that one…BF Westcott!) if he was saved. His reply was, “Do you mean, ‘I was saved,’ ‘I will be saved,’ or ‘I am being saved?’”
Dr. Moore, Thank you so much for this article! My conversion happened when I was very young and I have struggled at times with not having a specific date to pinpoint, but I know that I am a follower of Jesus. Please say hello to your family! Also say hello to the Stinsons!! We miss our days at CBMW, but are also very thankful to be serving Father here in East Asia! He is good and worthy to be praised among the nations!! Blessings!
I can pinpoint the time I opened to the Lord and was reborn but that does not become the standard. I know there are many who cannot be so precise and that’s fine.
Although I had a singular regeneration experience, I also had a few brushes with the Lord prior to finally opening to Him. Some were significant. There are many ways in which people come to Christ including some pretty bizarre or unusual ones. Even the Bible shows us Paul, the jailer, and others.
I just finished reading John MacArthur’s book ‘Saved Without a Doubt’. My pastor kindly let me borrow his copy after a conversation about this very topic.
I “prayed the prayer” when I was 10 and I am sure that’s when my conversion started… My spiritual life has had its ups and downs. I “prayed the prayer” many times, was christened and confirmed in the Lutheran Church although I attended several other denominations through the years. In my 20s, I become convinced about Believer’s Baptism and was baptized. Still, I was sometimes tormented by the thought that I might not be saved. Maybe that was a good thing…? I’m not sure.
As I began to develop assurance, my faith, and my faithfulness, increased. Or, maybe it was the other way around? I don’t know, honestly.
All that to say: I can’t pinpoint an exact moment.
For anyone who has doubts, John MacArthur has some excellent sermons at gty.org. Just type “assurance” into the search box. Because, if you’re saved, in John MacArthur’s words, “You might as well enjoy it!”
thank you for the article. very encouraging to read those words because of how much we do hear about a ’specific date’.
While I completely agree with the article, I do wonder why this is the case. Since the Bible describes the glorious act of justification as a heart turning from stone to flesh, death to life, slave of sin to a slave to Christ… it does seem a little funny that one does not recognize this since justification takes place in an instance, not a progression. I can understand why a child cannot remember the season, but it seems a little strange when talking about adults who have greater clarity of events. All that to say, I completely agree with the concluding statement, “The critical thing is whether you hear His Voice, maybe somewhere out there in the dark in front of you, calling you forward, right now”
Amen, wonderful story of truth, God’s glory, and Jesus power to save in the simplest factors, synonymous with those like experiences told in the New Testament. What good purposes are served by the greatly embellished dramatic tales of conversion, other than to enhance confidence in the teller. So often we here these experiences told with tremendous skills of oratory within the walls of our sanctuary’s, only to witness a much different tale told by the same individual in their lifestyle at work, and at home during the remaining six days of the week. The great Apostle Paul had by far the most dramatic conversion of any of the twelve. However, we must note, that in all of the records of inspired words, not one time does he date his experience other than with the setting of the occasion. Another truth is this, only one out of the twelve Apostles had such an experience, without the remaining eleven, Paul could have accomplished very little, and even at that, he looked up to them for they had even a more noble experience than he, and that was to have walked and talked with the Lord in the flesh and to have eye witnessed His signs. Strangely enough, each of those eleven simply heard the Master call out to them, “follow me”, they obeyed and that was the beginning fo their story. The most important factor of any salvation experience, however dramatic or undramatic it might be, the truth remains, it is only the beginning point of activated grace in a believer’s life. There are many who today, live totally on that one experience. I do praise my dear Lord that, as precious as that beginning experience is to me and ever shall remain, He has by His mercy led me from “faith to faith” and from “grace to grace” over these many years since that wonderful Sunday evening, sometime in April, 1964.
A few years back, I was using our Wednesday evening service to train our church for the G.R.O. W. outreach program. As we neared the end of the training, one of the last topics of training was to teach the participants in how to share their conversion experience. I began by simply asking the people to write out their experience in a spiral notebook we had provided for them to keep notes on the training.
One of our dear ladies, asked me a few days later if she could have another notebook. I replied in the affirmative, but wondered and inquired at why she needed another book. “Well, she said, “You asked us to write out our testimony of salvation, and I ran out of room.”
Subsequently, I called “time out” in the training session and launched a more detailed training on how to share your testimony.
For me at least, the most important value of our remembrance of our salvation experience lie in two areas, first that of assurance, second that of bringing others to Christ. The most effective way I have found to share Christ with others is to tell them how we came to know Him. However, as we stressed in our G.R.O.W. training, brevity is always the rule is sharing our story. When we are not brief in sharing our story of grace, we most often are glorifying ourselves rather than the One Who did the saving!