Well said, Rachel. I used to wonder like Jenn does. I would worry about my sin and that my best just was not good enough. I KNOW where I am going after I die. Because I am saved by grace. Whenever I start doubting my salvation, I go to the Bible and look at verses (some of the ones posted here) and it helps me with the doubts.

Well said :-)

Well Put Rachel, very well put! I would add in support of your post the following.

Point #1 is that God Himself desires that we know. God is very much into bringing us to a place where more and more is known, about Himself, our standing, His plan, His character. The entire reason for God reaching down to save fallen humanity could possibly be summed up by saying “that we may know Him”.

God wants us to know that our destiny is secure…

1 John 5:10-13
10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
NIV

Jesus emphasizes here in His beautiful high priestly prayer His mission among man. As lost people we do not and can not know God, yet God Himself came down to us to make God known, and make His love for us known as well.

John 17:25-26
25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.
26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
NIV

The intimacy that God desires to bring between us and Him through this “knowing” is explained in part in the following verse.

John 15:15

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
NIV

When we become part of God’s family the blinders can come off, light floods into the formerly dark and fearful corners of our existence, and we begin a journey of knowing.
God doesn’t ask us to guess, or wish, He desires that we know and that what we know comes from Him.
Consider the following passages; Eph 1:7-9, Eph 1:17-21.

Point #2 One of the chief things that God wants us to be sure of is our salvation itself. Just like Rachel said, the best and most certain assurance that a genuine Christian can have is that we are in no way required to provide, aquire, or maintain our salvation.

Eph 2:8-10
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
NIV

Wow, “by grace through faith you have been saved”! Did you notice that even the faith itself is said to be a gift from God? (also read 2Tim 2:24-26). God loves us too much to allow any part of our security to rest in our fumbling fingers.

Lastly about the assurance a Christian can and should have regarding their eternal destiny read Ephesians 1:13-14 and especially note when God says “ the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” God the Holy Spirit Himself living in the believer (this happens at salvation) is Himself the guarantee that we will “make it” not me, not my faithfulness, not my affiliation with a club, organization, not my efforts. But He Himself is that very sure guarantee! How cool is that?! How sure is that?!

Eph 1:13-14
13 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,
14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-to the praise of his glory.
NIV

What about people who sin yet have the faith? (One of the main reasons I have shyed away from Religion is because of those who hide behind it). I mean, do you think that someone who has faith that Jesus died for our sins would be a pretty bad sinner yet still get into heaven on his/her faith alone? That seems a little weird to me. (By the way, thank you for using a whole entry to post about my comment).

Jenn, the short answer to your question is, Yes. A person with genuine faith in Jesus will go to heaven.

The longer, more explanatory answer is, generally speaking, a person who is living a life full of purposeful unrepentant sin probably doesn't have genuine saving faith in Jesus. True faith in Him is life-changing in at least some degree. There are a lot of people who claim Jesus and claim to be His, but when you get right down to it the Jesus they believe in isn't the Jesus presented in Jesus' words or in the rest of the Bible. Remember the post and discussion months ago about Anne Lamott?

Then there are people who truly love Jesus and have a lot of baggage for Him to work through. There are people who have placed their faith in Jesus and then stepped back into the world and appear to live as though He doesn't exist (like my mom did, for years). There are people who live for years thinking they've been trusting Jesus, or at least considered themselves Christians, and then truly come to Him later and find that they were wrong (like my dad did). There are people who truly love Jesus and make big mistakes, sometimes very publicly (the list is very, very long, and most Christians are on it at some point or another).

It's not for me to say whether a person has saving faith or not; that's between him/her and God, although it behooves us to be watchful about who we allow to teach us, and use discernment, well, all the time. ;)

If you look to the people who claim His name, you will be disappointed, even if you only look to the 'good' ones, since every single person on this earth is a sinner and we will make mistakes, some big and some small, our entire lives. The bottom line is that your faith has to be between you and Jesus. A walk with God is a highly individualized thing; every one is built on the same foundation but otherwise quite different. In that way, thinking of Christians as under the umbrella of 'religion' can be misleading. We're all just people who have a relationship with someone. Each person is different, so each relationship is different as well.

Thank you for making so much sense on that! I appreciate and respect everything you have said here. On a slight tangent (Well, in reference to something you said)...I have a hard time listening to the teachings of ANYONE...I am skeptical about everything anyone says to me, however there are times when I am reading something or discussing something (in person or in a forum such as blog-comments) when what I have read or what has been said strikes me as truth (Because of something from the Bible or that voice in my heart - that or something interesting enough to learn more about). I have so much more to say about this, but I think I'll save it for my own entry because it would be selfish to take up so much of your comments space.

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