Does Giving your Heart to Jesus Save You?

Devotional writing for June 22nd in the Treasury of Daily Prayer.

"I just want you to know from the beginning, sir, that I am a believer, " [the young Pastor Fridfeldt] said [to the older pastor]....
"So you are a believer, I'm glad to hear that. What do you believe in?"
Fridfeldt stared dumbfounded at his superior....
"But, sir, I am simply saying that I am a believer."
"Yes, I hear that, my boy. But what is it that you believe in?"
Fridfeldt was almost speechless.
"But don't you know, sir, what it means to be a believer?"
"That is a word which can stand for things that differ greatly, my boy. I ask only what it is that you believe in."
"In Jesus, of course," answered Fridfeldt, raising his voice. "I mean - I mean that I have given him my heart."
"Do you consider that something to give him?"
By this time, Fridfeldt was almost in tears.
"But sir, if you do not give your heart to Jesus, you cannot be saved."
"You are right, my boy. And it is just as true that, if you think you are saved because you give Jesus your heart, you will not be saved. You see, my boy," he continued reassuringly, as he continued to look at the young pastor's face, in which uncertainty and resentment were shown in a struggle for the upper hand, "it is one thing to choose Jesus as one's Lord and Savior, to give him one's heart and commit oneself to him, and that he now accepts one into his little flock; it is a very different thing to believe on him as a Redeemer of sinners, of whom one is chief. One does not choose a Redeemer for oneself, you understand, nor give one's heart to him. The heart is a rusty old can on a junk heap. A fine birthday gift, indeed! But a wonderful Lord passes by, and has mercy on the wretched tin can, sticks his walking cane through it, and rescues it from the junk pile and takes it home with him. That is how it is."
~Bo Giertz, The Hammer of God