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How Do I Know If I’m Really Saved?
What Does It Mean to Be Saved?
Some people think that salvation is merely about meeting the minimal entrance requirements needed to get into heaven when they die. But that’s not how Jesus talked about it. Rightly understood, salvation is an invitation to know God and to experience His presence, favor, and power starting right here on earth. In How Do I Know if I’m Really Saved, bestselling author John Ortberg: Dispels the myth that eternal life is something we can only hope to experience after we die, Recaptures the New Testament definition of salvation, eternal life, and the Good News of the Gospel, and Explains what it really means to be a disciple. So what does it mean to be saved? Let’s find out!
Some people think that salvation is merely about meeting the minimal entrance requirements needed to get into heaven when they die. But that’s not how Jesus talked about it. Rightly understood, salvation is an invitation to know God and to experience His presence, favor, and power starting right here on earth. In How Do I Know if I’m Really Saved, bestselling author John Ortberg: Dispels the myth that eternal life is something we can only hope to experience after we die, Recaptures the New Testament definition of salvation, eternal life, and the Good News of the Gospel, and Explains what it really means to be a disciple. So what does it mean to be saved? Let’s find out!
- GenresChristian Living
98 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 4, 2018
26 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 15, 2022
Kort og kompakt om den kristne begrepet «frelse». Her er det, ifølge Ortberg, mange som går rundt med vanlige misforståelser og forenklinger av hva det egentlig innebærer. Gitt bokens størrelsesramme, synes jeg han svarer godt på vanlige misforståelser. Anbefales!
February 27, 2019
I love small books I can give away. John Ortberg’s How Do I Know if I’m Really Saved? fits this criteria perfectly. In fact, I already bought three extra copies that I expect won’t stay on my bookshelf longer than six months.
Ortberg’s book is an excellent book for all sorts of people: those who are questioning their salvation, those who are at the early stages of their Christian walk, or those who want to begin to take deeper steps into faith.
For those who are more mature, you will pick up on Ortberg’s influences (Dallas Willard, CS Lewis, NT Wright) and appreciate how he makes them accessible to a broad audience.
The book leverages a dichotomy that Ortberg perceives between two ways of thinking about salvation: “The first revolves around how people can be sure they’ll go to heaven when they die, and it usually involves affirming certain results in making one a ‘Christian.’” Meanwhile, “The other is about experiencing eternal life under God’s reign and power right now. It’s less about relocation than about transformation. It’s less about what God wants to do to you and more about what God wants to do in you. It’s not about getting into heaven; it’s about heaven getting into you.”
I know from interviews that the first form was influential in Ortberg’s own upbringing, but I’m not sure how pervasive it is for the average Christian today. Nonetheless, even if the foil isn’t something you resonate with, there is much to gain on how Ortberg teases out his definition of what it means to be a Christian.
Ortberg likens the first understanding of being a Christian to a husband trying to set up a minimalistic marriage with his wife. He explains, “Imagine I had said to my wife, Nancy, on our wedding day, ‘I want to know: What’s the absolute least I can do to be married to you? What’s the lowest level of commitment, the fewest affirmations, the smallest promises, the highest level of ignorance permissible—what are the minimum requirements for maintaining my husband status?’”
That’s such a helpful metaphor. Instead, Ortberg says, “Salvation isn’t primarily a matter of going to the good place when we die but of becoming a good person.” This is one of those moments that I think Ortberg doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. Instead of “becoming a good person,” I think it’s more accurate to frame salvation as a call to the King’s mission. “Good person” seems quite a bit weaker than what Jesus invites us into.
But Ortberg understands that. We are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling: “As Dallas Willard used to say, ‘Grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning.’” And again, as “Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, ‘Grace and discipleship are inseparable.’”
Questions then about where the boundary lies that we move from in the boundary of salvation to outside that boundary miss what Jesus’ ministry was about. Ortberg reflects, “[Jesus’] goal wasn’t to keep people out; it was to draw people in. He didn’t focus on boundaries; he focused on the center.”
In other words, Jesus was not concerned about the proper articulation of belief, but rather a leaning into his call. He quotes Willard again: “Hell is not an ‘oops!’ or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. ‘Outer darkness’ is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the universe actually is.”
That is to say, “We are not called to spiritual anxiety. Nor are we called to spiritual complacency.” Ortberg says then, that “The question is not ‘Am I ‘saved’?’ The question is ‘Am I following Jesus?’ And I follow Jesus not so that I can get into heaven but because following Jesus is the greatest offer ever given to the human race.”
We are called into the pattern of the cross, to be agents of the Kingdom. “People tend to think, Jesus died so I don’t have to. But what they should be thinking—what we all must realize—is that Jesus was crucified so I could be crucified with him.” The way of the Christian is the way of the cross. The question isn’t how little of the cross we can get away with, but whether we will accept it or not.
In short, Ortberg concludes: “How can I know if I’m really saved? Know God.”
Ortberg’s book is an excellent book for all sorts of people: those who are questioning their salvation, those who are at the early stages of their Christian walk, or those who want to begin to take deeper steps into faith.
For those who are more mature, you will pick up on Ortberg’s influences (Dallas Willard, CS Lewis, NT Wright) and appreciate how he makes them accessible to a broad audience.
The book leverages a dichotomy that Ortberg perceives between two ways of thinking about salvation: “The first revolves around how people can be sure they’ll go to heaven when they die, and it usually involves affirming certain results in making one a ‘Christian.’” Meanwhile, “The other is about experiencing eternal life under God’s reign and power right now. It’s less about relocation than about transformation. It’s less about what God wants to do to you and more about what God wants to do in you. It’s not about getting into heaven; it’s about heaven getting into you.”
I know from interviews that the first form was influential in Ortberg’s own upbringing, but I’m not sure how pervasive it is for the average Christian today. Nonetheless, even if the foil isn’t something you resonate with, there is much to gain on how Ortberg teases out his definition of what it means to be a Christian.
Ortberg likens the first understanding of being a Christian to a husband trying to set up a minimalistic marriage with his wife. He explains, “Imagine I had said to my wife, Nancy, on our wedding day, ‘I want to know: What’s the absolute least I can do to be married to you? What’s the lowest level of commitment, the fewest affirmations, the smallest promises, the highest level of ignorance permissible—what are the minimum requirements for maintaining my husband status?’”
That’s such a helpful metaphor. Instead, Ortberg says, “Salvation isn’t primarily a matter of going to the good place when we die but of becoming a good person.” This is one of those moments that I think Ortberg doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. Instead of “becoming a good person,” I think it’s more accurate to frame salvation as a call to the King’s mission. “Good person” seems quite a bit weaker than what Jesus invites us into.
But Ortberg understands that. We are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling: “As Dallas Willard used to say, ‘Grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning.’” And again, as “Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, ‘Grace and discipleship are inseparable.’”
Questions then about where the boundary lies that we move from in the boundary of salvation to outside that boundary miss what Jesus’ ministry was about. Ortberg reflects, “[Jesus’] goal wasn’t to keep people out; it was to draw people in. He didn’t focus on boundaries; he focused on the center.”
In other words, Jesus was not concerned about the proper articulation of belief, but rather a leaning into his call. He quotes Willard again: “Hell is not an ‘oops!’ or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. ‘Outer darkness’ is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the universe actually is.”
That is to say, “We are not called to spiritual anxiety. Nor are we called to spiritual complacency.” Ortberg says then, that “The question is not ‘Am I ‘saved’?’ The question is ‘Am I following Jesus?’ And I follow Jesus not so that I can get into heaven but because following Jesus is the greatest offer ever given to the human race.”
We are called into the pattern of the cross, to be agents of the Kingdom. “People tend to think, Jesus died so I don’t have to. But what they should be thinking—what we all must realize—is that Jesus was crucified so I could be crucified with him.” The way of the Christian is the way of the cross. The question isn’t how little of the cross we can get away with, but whether we will accept it or not.
In short, Ortberg concludes: “How can I know if I’m really saved? Know God.”
May 21, 2022
This is a really good short book by Ortberg. This is a book all about salvation. He contrasts the prevalent view of salvation about getting into heaven by believing certain doctrines with what he believes is a more accurate view of salvation which is the transformation of the individual by becoming a disciple/apprentice of Jesus. This book certainly offers food for thought and offers helpful frameworks for how to think about salvation, heaven etc. Ortberg is part of the spiritual formation movement associated with Dallas Willard and Richard foster and a question I always had is how do they connect salvation with the cross. I have felt in their writings in general the atonement becomes a kind of side issue and I was hoping for clearer answers in this book. Unfortunately I still found the answer to that question vague which I was disappointed about. But overall a really helpful book with Ortberg finishing it off by saying “How do I know I am saved? Know God”. Knowing God through interactive relationship with Him is eternal life.
November 23, 2022
I received this book a couple of years ago in a gift bag at a pastor's breakfast.
It is excellent. I definitely didn't think it would be THIS good, this refreshing.
A main theme of Ortberg's book is to see saved identity as being part of a group whose center is Jesus, rather than seeing it as performing the minimum requirements permissible for admission. That is to say, his points revolve around knowing God and pursuing Him.
A couple of things that would have made it even better for me:
Bible references for the definitions in the 'Glossary of Frequently Misunderstood Terms.'
Acts 16:31 & Luke 9:23 did not make it into his section of verses about salvation. However, I can certainly make do with what he has.
I plan to get a couple extra copies to have on hand to share.
It is excellent. I definitely didn't think it would be THIS good, this refreshing.
A main theme of Ortberg's book is to see saved identity as being part of a group whose center is Jesus, rather than seeing it as performing the minimum requirements permissible for admission. That is to say, his points revolve around knowing God and pursuing Him.
A couple of things that would have made it even better for me:
Bible references for the definitions in the 'Glossary of Frequently Misunderstood Terms.'
Acts 16:31 & Luke 9:23 did not make it into his section of verses about salvation. However, I can certainly make do with what he has.
I plan to get a couple extra copies to have on hand to share.
June 21, 2025
This is a bit of a “cheater” booker in terms of stats, but it managed to accomplish in less than 100 pages what I’ve been struggling with for years. I’ve struggled with the questions he talks about: “how do I know I’m saved” or “whats the minimum requirement to get into heaven?” This book is eye opening in the way it talks through God’s plan for us, not just to pass a test but to know him and follow his model - not just use him to avoid hell. This is a book I’ll have to come back to read again when I begin to doubt.
September 6, 2018
It's not heresy, but it's not clear. And for a book whose title insists on clarity, you can't afford to finish without providing a more distinct answer than you get with this. Overall it is a book that has much more to do with discipleship than salvation, and most of that feels somewhat superfluous. Not a useful primer to direct nonbelievers to the saving truth that Jesus died on the cross to save us of our sins.
November 27, 2019
This book gives me the true knowledge about how to become a Christian..
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews