Discussion on Testimony and Remembering One’s Moment of Salvation

Byron commented in a thread that his wife and mother-in-law are saved but don’t have a specific “moment of salvation”. My wife also cannot recall a specific moment when she received Christ as her Lord and Savior. I know that there is no specific “formula” for salvation, but I’m curious as to what kind of testimony a person with this experience can give? If there is no specific moment in time when a person becomes aware they are a sinner in need of God’s forgiveness, how can they give someone else their testimony?

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Ed Romero This is kind of my testimony too. I was raised in the church and intellectually never had a problem with the gospel. But slowly started to matter in high school

June 15 at 4:18pm · Like · 1
Ed Chait Thanks Ed. Did you slowly come to realize that you were a sinner?

June 15 at 4:22pm · Like · 1
Jeff Laird Awareness of need isn’t necessarily the same as submission to that truth. We’re saved by submissive, repentant faith, not a process or by putting a date and time on our halo. I can’t tell you exactly when I was “truly” saved, since I prayed the prayers and had moments of contrition many times. I do know that at some point, my relationship with Christ moved from intellectual to personal, and I know that what I believe, and who I trust, is what gives me confidence to say I’m a saved believer… now. When exactly I got here isn’t as important as where I am.

June 15 at 4:22pm · Like · 4
Ed Romero It’s hard to pin it down. I knew it intellectually for a while. But my brokenness wasn’t sudden. It was gradual, as my understanding increased

June 15 at 4:26pm · Like · 2
Ed Chait I’ve also heard it said that salvation is not possible without a person having a crisis, but that doesn’t seem to be universally true.

June 15 at 4:26pm · Like
Ed Romero I’d be curious to see what Scriptures say that that’s the case smile emoticon

June 15 at 4:28pm · Like · 2
Jeff Laird I had an intellectual / spiritual crisis, and that started the process, but it certainly didn’t happen quickly. Much like Ed, I had to learn to be broken before I could realize I’d been healed. My son expressed interest in salvation as a kindergartner, without any personal crisis at all.

June 15 at 4:30pm · Like · 3
Jeff Laird My personal connection to the “make your calling and election sure” is exactly that: some of us don’t get a Damascus Road. We get the slow boil.

June 15 at 4:31pm · Like · 2
Ed Chait OK, but then whether it was acute or prolonged, you guys did become aware of being sinners and repentance was part of the process?

June 15 at 4:35pm · Like · 1
Gwen Sellers I grew up in the church, accepted Jesus at a young age (I have a vague recollection), and used to think that I didn’t have a testimony. But that is just not true. My testimony is of the ways God has been active in my life. It’s of His sanctification work. There was a time when I really viscerally realized how much of a sinner I am, but my faith was definitely real and my own before that. At that time, though, it became less about performance and being a “good Christian” to make God happy and more about my desperate need and absolute inability. So my story is not so much this is how I was before salvation and this is how I am after. But, this is how I was a few years ago, and this is how God has changed me … and also this is how God is continuing to change me. I think a huge part of any Christian testimony is in the way God is presently active in our lives, giving us meaning, hope, deeper understanding, etc.

June 15 at 4:38pm · Like · 5
Jeff Laird Yes, Ed. At least for me.

June 15 at 4:39pm · Like · 2
Jinny Leo I had a definitive salvation experience. The moment I was saved I could literally feel the weight of all my shame and guilt being lifted off of me. My whole body tingled and the hairs on my body stood straight up. I had never felt that kind of relief and peace ever in my life. I knew without a doubt I was then saved because I could feel the presence of the spirit come over me.

June 15 at 4:41pm · Like · 3
Gwen Sellers I would say that repentance is really part of the process of the Christian life. I understand the sort of one time repentance in salvation of admitting the need for Jesus. But aren’t we repenting fairly continually after that? Works-based thoughts can creep in, we misunderstand things about God and then He reveals truth, and we all know that specific sins happen.

June 15 at 4:41pm · Like · 5
Ed Romero How beautiful is the testimony of Paul on the road. And how beautiful is the testimony of Timothy, who was raised to believe

June 15 at 4:45pm · Unlike · 4
Ed Chait OK, then that’s a lot different than believing you’re saved because something happened like you fell out of a tree and Jesus saved you so you’re saved.

June 15 at 4:45pm · Like · 1
Jeff Laird I’d call that waffling on terminology. “Saved (from injury)” vs ” Saved (from sin) “.

June 15 at 4:46pm · Like · 2
Ed Chait Waffling in a negative sense? Not sure I understand Jeff.

June 15 at 4:47pm · Like
Ed Romero Mmm. Waffles.

June 15 at 4:48pm · Like · 1
Jeff Laird Meaning I’d agree that being “saved” from the tree is very different from being “saved” in the salvation sense. Same word, different meanings.

June 15 at 4:49pm · Like · 2
Ed Chait OK, I understand, thanks.

June 15 at 4:49pm · Like · 1
Jeff Laird Of course, it wasn’t until I sent the nice man on TV a check that I really felt the spirit. Can’t wait to see what my seed grows into!

June 15 at 4:51pm · Like · 4
Ed Chait Everyone’s story of salvation is beautiful.

June 15 at 4:52pm · Unlike · 4
Robert Lowry I can’t tell you the day and hour I was saved. I’ve heard it preached that if you can’t tell the day and hour, you are not saved. But I beg to differ. I began to realize my need in October 1976. By January 1977, I knew I was a sinner in need of Jesus a…See More

June 15 at 5:10pm · Like · 3
Ed Romero My prayer is that, if the Lord wills I have kids someday, that they wouldn’t remember a time that they didn’t trust in Jesus

June 15 at 5:12pm · Like · 1
Fred Becker Personally, I tell people how I accepted Jesus as my saviour in high school but it was thirty plus years before I accepted Jesus as Lord. As to a date, I went a full year thinking I. Was a year older than I was and will forget my own birthday. I don’t remember dates for much of anything. I can give an idea of how I came to faith and how but not a date.

June 15 at 5:33pm · Like · 2
Joseph Ford I only remember the month and year and my experience was very much like Jinny Leo. The weight of my sins just lifted off of my shoulders as my tears of shame poured out of me. I’d grown up going to church until my family stopped going when I was 16. For over 20 years after that I only stepped inside of a church once. I was twice married with 2 young boys before I made it back and God broke me in 6 months. And I’m thankful He did! I look back on the 11 years since and I can see His handiwork all over my life. Even in the wilderness times, He reminds me He is always there. Praise the Lord, not just because He is good, but because He is worthy. I don’t praise Him enough and I can’t praise Him enough for His wonderful gift of salvation. Sorry for rambling, but He is worthy.

June 15 at 5:55pm · Like · 2
Doug Andre I can remember the exact moment I was saved. But I know others who can’t. The truth of the matter is that no matter if you can remember or if you can’t God knows. Sharing one’s testimony might suffer a bit if you can’t remember but God will use them if it is His will.

June 15 at 5:56pm · Like · 2
Christopher Dupre Some remain skeptical of people with that experience. I prayed the prayer a number of times in my teen years, but there was one point that I looked back at all that and just knew God had saved me. It’s faith that saves us, of course, and not any type of formulaic prayer. I think it ‘took’ the first time, in August of 1982, but there was doubt here and there along the way. smile emoticon

June 15 at 7:06pm · Like · 4
Ed Chait Thank you all for sharing. As Jeff mentioned, I think where we are now is more important than exactly how we got here.

June 16 at 12:38am · Like · 2
Marc Weiss I am a firm believer in that we should have a “time and place” so we’re sure. Helps fight the enemy. It is not required, but it certainly helps in times of doubt. God knows our heart.

May 2012 in my bedroom smile emoticon

June 16 at 12:41am · Edited · Like · 1
Marc Weiss For the record too – I am a fan of “praying to receive Christ” so there are no questions. I have done it more than once, but the 2012 was my turning point where I can point to a time when I turned from sin and embraced Jesus by faith. What we know intellectually and what applies, many times, is a gap. I struggle with it daily.

June 16 at 12:44am · Like · 1
Ed Chait This is where I go when I doubt:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
(1 John 4:7-8)

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
(1 John 4:15-16)

June 16 at 12:51am · Edited · Like · 1
Justin Tilghman I’m much like some others here. I was graciously blessed to grow up in the faith. I can’t tell you the exact moment b/c I have prayed the sinners prayer more times than I can count but I’m not trusting in that prayer to save me. I’m so prone to cling to things that perhaps it’s God’s grace that I don’t have a date or time to cling to b/c I would more likely trust in that date when things got rough instead of examining my life as Scripture calls us to do. I find assurance in, as Gwen mentioned, how I see the Holy Spirit actively working in me now. JD Greear’s book “Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart” was a big help to me. He talks often about this very same question and he makes the following statement, which I find to be very helpful:

“Many believers are troubled because they can’t “remember” the moment when they first made the decision to trust Jesus. That doesn’t really matter at all. All that matters is that you’re trusting Him as Lord and Savior right now. Think of it like this: I walk into a classroom and sit down in a chair. About halfway through the class you ask me if I ever made a decision to sit in the chair. I say “yes,” and you ask me how I know that I made that decision. I don’t walk you through the decision making process that led me to sit in the chair, reviving the logic and emotions that caused me to take seat. I simply show you that I am currently seated.

The fact that I am seated means that at some point I made a decision to sit down, even if I can’t remember making that decision. This is what John 3:36, 1 John 5:13, Romans 4:5, Romans 10:9-10 say clearly… there are only two categories. Those currently believing, submissively, the testimony God has given about His Son, and those in defiant disbelief.

What is important is not that you can remember the moment of your salvation, or that you made the decision “correctly,” but simply that you are seated in Christ’s righteousness and in His authority right now. To press the analogy a bit further, either you are standing in your own righteousness and your own lordship, or you are seated in His salvation and His Lordship. There is no third option.”

June 16 at 6:05am · Like · 3
Byron Earnheart The original question was how can they give their testimony…by their actions and love. Words are only as good as the actions that support them.

June 16 at 7:20am · Like · 2
Ed Chait What a good discussion. I love this place, and all of you.

June 16 at 9:21am · Unlike · 3
Alyson Dreyer This was good for me to read. I’ve always had questions about people who don’t remember exactly when they were saved. I was a Timothy. I always knew and loved the Lord. One day at vacation Bible school when I was 6, we were drawing rainbows. A rainbow had always been a promise from God. If he had not made that promise, rainbows wouldn’t be. That was my 6 year old understanding. As I was drawing, God seemed to be speaking to my heart and telling me that he did love the world but he wanted to know from me if I wanted him to save me. In that moment my understanding changed from corporate salvation to personal. My salvation prayer was “Yes!”. What amazing stories. I always ask people for their testimonies. Maybe if we all shared more there wouldn’t be so many misunderstandings.

Yesterday at 1:43am · Like · 1
Wendyl Leslie Whenever someone ask me when was I saved, I tell them that I was saved on a Friday afternoon some 2,000 years ago on a hill called Golgotha.

Yesterday at 5:52am · Like · 4
William Brenner Wendyl, that is a great response.

Yesterday at 6:03am · Like · 1
Gina Cook Great responses. smile emoticon My husband is one of those that was raised in the Christian faith and has struggled to understand his testimony. After much reflection on his past and the work God has done in him, he realized (as of just a few years ago) that he always understood the Gospel, shared it with others and strived to make it personal but he didn’t really make it personal until a few years before we met when something tragic happened in his life. He says it was the day he handed the reigns over to Christ. It was then that the Word opened up to him, he could understand the meat of it without others interpreting it for him and he had a deep thirst for it. I believe it’s not so much about recounting the day and time as it is how we live in thanksgiving and obedience following that day-bearing good fruit. My sister and I both had radical transformations and can truly relate to the woman in Luke 7:36-50. We had the larger debt and were known to have a larger debt by many. So thankful for God’s grace and for every believer’s testimony/salvation!

Yesterday at 7:51am · Like · 1
Doug Andre 1 John 5:11-13….Assurance of salvation.

Yesterday at 8:40am · Like · 2
Dean Revell there but for the grace of God, go I

Yesterday at 2:11pm · Like · 2