How can you be absolutely assured that you will "enter the kingdom of heaven?" Only in one way: "only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (v. 21). So it is imperative that we ask, what is this will?

"My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:40).

"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:29).

"This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us" (1 John 3:23).

Then our words and works will reflect our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We will bear the "fruit of the Spirit" as a natural result of branches connected with the vine. We will walk on the road to abundant life, and our words and actions will witness to that life. We will serve Jesus with sacrificial commitment, repentant hearts, and transformed souls. And one day, instead of hearing "I never knew you," we will hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" (Matthew 25:21), the most blessed words in all of eternity.

So let us be sure that we know Jesus in this intimate, personal way. For many years I wasn't sure. I thought God had a scale, with the good at one end and the bad at the other. I hoped I was good enough for the scale to tip in my favor. Millions of Americans still think the same way: I'm good and believe in God, so hopefully that will be enough.

Bruce Wilkinson, in his new book The Life God Rewards, explains salvation this way. Draw a line in your mind. Write "totally evil" on the left end, and "totally good" on the right. Put an X to mark how close to "totally good" a person would have to be to get into heaven. Where did you put your mark?

Let's say you put the X at 70%. What if God requires 71%? You'd be lost. Where does he put the X? At 100%. His heaven is perfect, and can only stay that way if only perfect people are admitted. The pack of gum I stole at the age of five was enough to keep me out. Romans 3:23 includes every one of us: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." All.

So what are we to do? Nothing. Our salvation depends not on what we can do, but on what God has done. His perfect Son came to earth and died in our place. His death did not pay off the debt of his own sin, for he was sinless. Rather, it paid off the debt you owed this perfect God. Now when you ask God to forgive your sins, he can. He can place you at the "totally good" end of the line. You can be in his perfect paradise. When you ask Jesus to forgive your failures, repent of them, and ask him to be your Lord, he answers your prayer. And he "knows" you, personally and eternally.

When he "knows" you, he will never forget you. You can be absolutely certain of your salvation. Not because of your words or works, but because of his.

Jesus promised: "Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). From the moment you "believed in him," you received eternal life. You have it right now. You will never perish. When you breathe your last here, you breathe your first there. Jesus said, "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:26).

Now Jesus says of you, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:27-28).

God's word states, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). You are a new creation, the child of God. It is not possible for you to return to where you were before you met Christ.

You are his child, and will always be his child, just as my sons will always be my sons. No matter how they feel, or what they say or do, they cannot go back and not be my sons, because they were born as my sons. You were "born again" as the child of God, and will be his child forever.

But we have questions.

Someone will say this morning, "I don't feel close to God." The Bible replies: nowhere does God's word say how it feels to be a Christian. Our feelings depend on the pizza we had for dinner last night, or any of a thousand other circumstances. I didn't feel anything when I first asked Christ to be my Savior, and thus doubted my salvation for many months. I heard wonderful stories about burdens lifted, great joy flooding hearts, but none of that happened for me. It was a great relief to discover that it didn't have to. Feelings are the caboose, at the end of faith—not its engine.

Someone else will ask, What about free will? If we choose to trust Christ, can we later choose not to? No more than a child can later choose not to be born. If a person claims he once knew Christ but now rejects him, I would say he never knew him. And I would do all I could to help him meet Jesus personally.

And someone else will ask, What about my sins? I have failed the Lord. I have fallen so short of the person he wants me to be. The Bible replies: so did Paul. So did Peter, who denied Christ three times. So did the other apostles, who fled at the cross. So have I. So have we all. If your assurance were based on religious performance, you'd be in trouble. Praise God, our assurance is not based on our words or works, but his. He says we are his children. His Son died to pay off our spiritual debt so we could join his eternal family. This is the word of the Lord.