John 10:9 “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.”

The person who becomes part of God’s flock by going through Jesus is a person who is saved. Do you know what it means to be saved? Have you ever had someone ask you if you were?

There are those who put a big emphasis on the overpowering emotions they experience when they come to realize the love and forgiveness Jesus gives. I don’t deny that can be an emotional experience. But being saved has more to do with the condition of being safe than our reaction to it.

Matt Dyer went hiking and camping with friends in the Canadian Arctic in July of 2013. On the third night of their outing a polar bear tore through his tent, clamped its jaws around his head, and began to drag him away. By the time his companions managed to scare the animal off with a flare gun, it had crushed his jaw, lashed open his neck exposing his carotid artery, left a puncture wound into his esophagus, and broken a couple of vertebrae.

Matt was airlifted first to a base camp, then to a small town where a team of first responders could work on him, then to another town with a hospital, and finally to a major hospital in the city of Montreal. He was safe from the bear’s attack the moment his friends scared it away. He was safe from any further threat of the animal when he reached the base camp. He wasn’t really safe from the wounds he suffered until he reached the hospital in Montreal.

Jesus is our door to spiritual safety. He saved us when he died on the cross in our place. He dealt with our enemy the devil, and he paid the penalty for all our sins. Still, we weren’t personally in the safe place, where all of this could do us any good, until he gave us the gift of faith, and his death and resurrection became our own personal protection from the death and hell our sins deserved. Now we wait for the day when he will come again, and he will bring salvation with him, our final rescue to the safe place in heaven where all will be restored, and we will never see another danger to our souls.

Jesus makes us safe. And as we wait for the absolute safety of heaven, he feeds the faith that keeps us safe in his forgiveness and grace. “He will come in and go out, and find pasture.” Do you know what faith feeds on? Do you know what builds trust? Faith and trust feed on love.

That’s what builds human relationships. I grow closer to my wife, I trust her more and more, the more she tells me she loves me, and the more she shows me she loves me.

That’s what keeps me close to my Savior. The more I see his unconditional love–yes, he forgives this sin, too; yes, he has a place for someone just like me–the more I trust the one who loved me and gave himself for me. It keeps my faith fed and growing. It keeps me safe, and saved.