Thank you Colleen, Carol, Heinz Lycklama, and many others for tuning into my live video! Follow me Dr. John A. King (Th.D.) or on Social Security@drjohnaking.
Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart
Business for Today
I encourage you all to register at manchurch.online for monthly reminders.Follow on social media and Substack Dr. John A. King (Th.D.) .
Phoenix Collective Free Master Class on Redefining Normal:https://rise.phoenixcollective.app/event-page
My Story
I remember when I first responded to an altar call to give my life to Christ. I was probably 11 and had just spent the afternoon smoking cigarettes I’d stolen from a local store before Bible study at the Friday Club at our local church, Calvinistic Methodist.
It was a real encounter.I mean, the world stood still.My soul came alive.They gave me a little Gideons Bible.
For me back then, life was rough. Abusive at home, physically and sexually. I was made to do a lot of things I never wanted to do. I assumed I was the bad person because I was doing these things. I assumed I needed to get saved again, because obviously I wasn’t saved, or bad things wouldn’t happen to me.
So I went to a Presbyterian church. They had a youth program, and I prayed again. I was 13. I went back home and life was still bad.
A couple of years later I went to an Anglican church. They took communion every week. I went back the following week and the minister told me I couldn’t take communion again because I wasn’t confirmed. I went home and read the whole New Testament and came back, excited to tell him that I’d discovered I didn’t need to be an Anglican to take communion. I just needed to have asked Jesus and be trying to be a real Christian, and I’d done the “into my heart” thing a couple of years before.
He said I was wrong. I told him to go…jump in a lake. I got kicked out of church. I was 16.
When I turned 18, and I could drive, my moron mate Ray Fuggle and I would hop in his orange Kombi van and every Sunday we’d look up churches in the Australian equivalent of a Mapsco and randomly pick one. We’d take neckties with us and a packet of biscuits (cookies, in your vernacular) and go looking for pretty girls, a free feed, and Jesus.
I got saved again in a Spanish-speaking church, sitting at the back, not knowing what was going on, but I knew I needed something. My heart ached for my life to be different, so I walked the aisle.
I spent the next six years fighting and shagging my way through college. Every night I would read my little Gideons Bible and slur-pray, asking for forgiveness, before I went to sleep. I ended up on another altar call at a new starter church called Hillsong and wondered if this time it would take.
In my early 20s I ended up in ministry at Hillsong Church, and my compulsory altar-call-attending didn’t stop. I went to the altar most Sundays because I didn’t feel good enough. I didn’t think God loved me. I didn’t think I was good enough to make the grade. I look back at my last week and thought, If I died tonight, I’m screwed.
At some point, probably late 30s, early 40s, I realized this wasn’t about me needing to be saved. It was about me understanding what salvation meant.
And I am sure many of you here today have faced, or are facing, the same dilemma. So I want to give you some basic theology, explain one scripture, ask you three questions, then have a chat.
Theology Without the Eye-Roll
Now, when it comes to theology, I will not treat you like morons if you don’t pretend to be idiots. We are all grown-ups, and we can understand big words and new terms if someone takes the time to explain them.
There is nothing hard about theology. What is hard is accepting the truth of its simplicity.
Humans always want to screw things up, particularly when it comes to the nature and character of God, by making it more complicated than it is so they look smarter than you. They are not.
So when I say theology, don’t roll your eyes. That’s why we keep the cameras on.
Theology is simple, beautiful, and obtainable. It is the study of who God is, what He has said about us, and what He has done for us.
Let me read you a statement, then I’ll break it down:
Salvation is God’s free, sovereign grace rescuing sinners by uniting them to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit’s work, so that they are justified (forgiven and counted righteous), then sanctified (changed), preserved (kept), and finally glorified (made whole), all received by faith alone, not earned.
Break It Into Two Parts
Part One
Salvation is God’s free, sovereign grace rescuing sinners by uniting them to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit’s work, so that they are justified (forgiven and counted righteous).
Salvation is God’s free and gracious gift of rescuing sinners (you and me) from the consequences of life choices and actions that He does not approve of.
Jesus rescued and saved us by what He did on the cross when He died for us.
How do we earn salvation? We don’t. It is a gift of grace. That means it’s free, and you did nothing to earn it.
What does salvation do? It makes you righteous. Righteous means you are right with God. Self-righteous means you’re a dick. Different thing altogether.
Salvation justifies you. That means when God looks at you, He looks at you just-as-if-you-have-never-sinned. Justified. He sees you as perfect and with no room for improvement.
Part Two
Salvation is God’s free, sovereign grace rescuing sinners by uniting them to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit’s work, so that they are justified (forgiven and counted righteous), then sanctified (changed), preserved (kept), and finally glorified (made whole).
After you are saved and justified, which is instantaneous, an internal spiritual transformation starts to take place. This process is called being sanctified, or sanctification.
Sanctification is lifelong transformation. It is where God changes you from the inside out, helping you turn away from sin and grow to live more like Christ, little by little, in real-life choices, attitudes, and habits, daily.
So we have salvation. We have justification. We have sanctification.
Then we have preservation. That means God keeps you. He holds onto you and never lets you go. Preservation means He has saved you so you can’t fall away. He commits to protecting your faith, commits to bringing you back when you drift, and makes sure you endure to the end.
Finally, there is glorification. The work of salvation is complete. You live forever with Him in a perfected body and a perfected soul.
If anyone tells you this happens this side of heaven, they are idiots and charlatans. Run from them. Think Jonestown / Heaven’s Gate / Manson Family. Smell cult.
Why You Get Confused and Wonder If You’re Saved
A lot of men suffer with this issue because of guilt. We have all made mistakes. Many. Often. Repeatedly. And we think these disqualify us from a relationship with God and mean we are unsaved.
We feel we should keep paying some sort of price for doing dumb stuff. Whipping and beating ourselves. Repeatedly praying the sinner’s prayer. Never sure if we’re heaven-bound. Always feeling disqualified.
We don’t talk to God because we feel dirty and unworthy, which we all are, all the time. You’re not special. It’s called being human.
As Kanye West says in his song Jesus Walks, we feel like our sin is particularly bad, and we’re disqualified from His presence and, ultimately, His glory.
That would be true if your salvation was based on your works. But it’s not. It is based on His work. His grace. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
You might be sitting here today because you have questions, or you feel unworthy. Let’s unpack a scripture together, then I’ll ask three questions, then we’ll have a chat.
Romans 8:15–17 (ESV)
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Now stop and take a breath. It sounds complicated. It’s not. Let’s assume we’re supposed to understand this.
I want to highlight verse 16, but it is always a good practice to look at Scripture in context: verse before and after, and often chapter before and after.
Why? It keeps you out of Jonestown / Heaven’s Gate.
Verse 16: The Wrestling Match
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
The big point here is that God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is trying to tell your spirit that you are His child. Bears witness.
That is where most of the wrestling takes place in us.
The Holy Ghost is saying: You’re His.You say: I don’t act like it or live like it.The Holy Ghost says: Yeah, we need to do something about that, but regardless, you’re still His.You say: But I’m a dick.Holy Ghost says: You might be an a-hole, but not a total dick.
You know this to be true because you have kids. Kids do dumb stuff. You still love them.
And that leads us into the second half of the verse:
Children of God means we are offspring of God, as if we were born to Him.
Verse 17: Heirs
“And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…”
We are only going to look at the first half.
Why only the first half? Because most of us get stuck on the word suffer, and our understanding of the word in this context is wrong. We are all really good at suffering and all really bad at grace, and I don’t want that to be the focus of our chat. We will mention it at the end.
Again we see this concept of heirs, fellow heirs, children of God: that our salvation, by grace, makes us children of God.
Verse 15: Adoption and “Abba”
“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
In first-century Roman society, the term “Abba” means “father” and was commonly used by children to express a close, personal relationship with their fathers.
In Roman law and customs, the distinction between natural-born sons, adopted sons, and slaves was significant. Only legitimate sons (both born and adopted) had the legal standing to call their father “Abba,” which indicated they had a place of honor and intimacy in the family. Slaves, on the other hand, did not have this familial relationship and therefore would not have used this term.
This reinforces the idea of belonging and acceptance within God’s family for those who are led by the Spirit.
Led by the Spirit means you are going somewhere. He is taking you on a journey. That is sanctification.
Takeaway
If you are struggling with the question Am I saved? Am I a Christian? Will I go to heaven? this answers it.
If you have ever acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Savior, and you are trying your best to live for Him and failing miserably at it, then the answer is yes, you are saved.
What happens in these seasons is that the Holy Ghost is wrestling with you and trying to pull you onto the right path.
The issue is not your salvation. The issue is your sanctification.
Thought: If you have ever faced a trial and cried out to God, it means you are saved. A slave would never do that.
So the question is not “Am I saved?”The issue is: Why am I living like a slave and not acting like a son?
Three Simple Questions
Answer these to yourself.
* Do you love Jesus perfectly?No, you don’t. If you said yes, see my statement about Jonestown / Heaven’s Gate.
* Do you love Him as much as you ought to?If your answer to question 1 is no, then your answer to question 2 is also no.
* Do you love Jesus at all?If you answer no to that question, that is where your theology kicks in. It means your spirit is not born again, and you need to go and seek God on this issue, asking Him to regenerate your spirit.
If your answer is yes, then again, your theology kicks in.
You love Christ, but the Holy Ghost is wrestling with you, drawing you, challenging you to act like a son of God and not live like a slave to sin.
Conclusion
If your answer to “Do you love Jesus at all?” is: I’m trying to. I fail. But I’m trying…
Then you are saved. End of story.
That feeling you have in your stomach isn’t condemnation. It is the Holy Ghost saying, Come, son. Come walk with me. Together we will watch you grow into everything you were meant to be.
It’s not condemnation. It’s wooing. It’s the calling of a loved one. It’s the whisper of heaven drawing you to Himself.
One More Hard Line
If you tell people, “I love Jesus and I am saved,” but you refuse to live how He tells you to live, then you have to question whether you are truly regenerate in spirit.
If you are trying to live like He wants you to live and you are continually failing, that’s human.
But if you refuse to live, and you walk around filled with self-righteous fire-insurance nonsense, you’re not living like a son. You’re living like a slave.
John 14:15 — “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
And if you want to know the true meaning of suffering in the second half of verse 17, that’s it. It is not this martyr-works / suffering-works nonsense. It is: Are you paying the price to love Him as He has loved you, and doing what you know to do because He has asked you to?
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
drturner.substack.com/subscribe
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
