Feeling Saved

   I believe that it is possible for a person who is saved to feel saved. I think the Ethiopian eunuch was such a person. Peter speaks of believers (saved people) who “rejoice with joy unspeakable” (1 Pet. 1.8), and surely to have joy unspeakable is a good feeling.

But consider this paradox: though being saved can give you a good feeling, a good feeling is never proof that you are saved. Many folks, mislead by incorrect teaching, have been waiting on their feelings to tell them whether or not they are saved. Blessed assurance, however, doesn’t come from a feeling but from believing and obeying the promises of God. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk. 16.16). Are we to only take Jesus at His word on this if our feelings, which can change a thousand times in a day, corroborates what He said? Are we to pit our feelings against God’s credibility?

I don’t think so. Rather, we must believe God in spite of our feelings. There were times when Job didn’t feel like obeying God, but he never let his feelings keep him from obedience; he never allowed what he felt to overrule what he knew.

Feelings are ephemeral things. There’s a great scene in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge has had dinner and is on his way home. When we gets to his door, he sees the face of his dead partner, Jacob Marley, in the doorknob. Scrooge is startled, but finally brushes it off by saying, “There’s more gravy than grave in you”; in other words, I didn’t just see Marley’s ghost; I just had a bit of indigestion. Our God-given feelings serve a good purpose, but relying on them to tell us what’s true and right is using them the wrong way.

Kenny Chumbley