Assurance Of Salvation Quotes

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

For we are not saved by believing in our own salvation, nor by believing anything whatsoever about ourselves. We are saved by what we believe about the Son of God and His righteousness. The gospel believed saves; not the believing in our own faith.

Your job then, should you choose to accept it, is to keep searching for the metaphors, rituals and teachers that will help you move ever closer to divinity. The Yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship—just so long as those prayers are sincere. I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. I think you are free to search for any metaphor whatsoever which will take you across the worldly divide whenever you need to be transported or comforted. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's the history of mankind's search for holiness. If humanity never evolved in its exploration of the divine, a lot of us would still be worshipping golden Egyptian statues of cats. And this evolution of religious thinking does involve a fair bit of cherry-picking. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light. The Hopi Indians thought that the world's religions each contained one spiritual thread, and that these threads are always seeking each other, wanting to join. When all the threads are finally woven together they will form a rope that will pull us out of this dark cycle of history and into the next realm. More contemporarily, the Dalai Lama has repeated the same idea, assuring his Western students repeatedly that they needn't become Tibetan Buddhists in order to be his pupils. He welcomes them to take whatever ideas they like out of Tibetan Buddhism and integrate these ideas into their own religious practices. Even in the most unlikely and conservative of places, you can find sometimes this glimmering idea that God might be bigger than our limited religious doctrines have taught us. In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite." But doesn't that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed ... infinite? That even the most holy amongst us would only be able to see scattered pieces of the eternal picture at any given time? And that maybe if we could collect those pieces and compare them, a story about God would begin to emerge that resembles and includes everyone? And isn't our individual longing for transcendence all just part of this larger human search for divinity? Don't we each have the right to not stop seeking until we get as close to the source of wonder as possible? Even if it means coming to India and kissing trees in the moonlight for a while? That's me in the corner, in other words. That's me in the spotlight. Choosing my religion.

A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when man rises above superstitions and religious notions and fears, and, for instance, no longer believes in guardian angels or in original sin, and has also ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul.

Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" is the heartbeat of the gospel, joyful liberation from fear of the Final Outcome, a summons to self-acceptance, and freedom for a life of compassion toward others.

Just as my assurance of salvation rests in the fact that God cannot change, my hope of sanctification rests in the fact that I can

One of the the loveliest lines I have ever read comes from Brother Roger, the Prior of the Protestant monks of Taize, France: 'Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.' It is still difficult for me to read these words without tears filling my eyes. It is wonderful.

Go to bed, you fool,” Calcifer said sleepily. “You’re drunk.” “Who, me?” said Howl. “I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.” He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him. “What a lie that was!” Howl remarked as he walked into the wall. “My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.” He walked into the wall several times more, in several different places, before he discovered his bedroom door and crashed his way through it. Sophie could hear him falling about, saying that his bed was dodging.

When we see salvation whole—its every single part is found in Christ, we must beware lest we derive the smallest drop from somewhere else.

In the history of a soul’s evolution there is a critical point of the human incarnation that decides for us whether we stay there, go down or progress upwards. There is a knot of worldly desires impeding us; cut the knot by mastering desires and go forward. This done, progress is assured.

ABC," one woman offered. "Assure, Believe, Convert." "Correct," Langdon said. "Religions assure salvation; religions believe in a perecise theology; and religions convert nonbelievers.

One of the greatest crimes committed by this present Christian generation is its neglect of the gospel, and it is from this neglect that all our other maladies spring forth. The lost world is not so much gospel hardened as it is gospel ignorant because many of those who proclaim the gospel are also ignorant of its most basic truths. The essential themes that make up the very core of the gospel—the justice of God, the radical depravity of man, the blood atonement, the nature of true conversion, and the biblical basis of assurance—are absent from too many pulpits. Churches reduce the gospel message to a few creedal statements, teach that conversion is a mere human decision, and pronounce assurance of salvation over anyone who prays the sinner’s prayer.

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Hope is an enthusiastic assurance.

I once read these words on a tombstone: “Born, died, kept.” Let us pray God to keep us in perfect peace, and assured of salvation.

We are no more secure in Christ with a strong faith than with a small faith, so long as that small faith is true faith.

Although all believers are subject to many failings and can fall before the smallest temptation, their determination to continue in the faith and their gradual and progressive sanctification are great evidences of salvation and provide a solid ground for assurance. 1

The believed gospel saves; but it is the believed promise that assures us of this salvation.

Oh blessed assurance, Come down, make home with us. Our hope is high for whats in store, Come move these feet towards Love.

The beauty of salvation and Gods grace isn't in him solving all of our problems instantly, like a magic genie. Its beauty comes in the assurance that he has a greater plan for you.

It is true that we need to make a onetime decision to follow Jesus. But a true onetime decision is followed by the everyday decision tofollow Jesus.

You show me a man who does not pray very much and I will tell you the real problem of that man. It is that he does not know God, he does not know God as his Father. That is the trouble.

Many of those who elected to remain might have escaped. 'Chivalry' is a mild appellation for their conduct. Some of the vaunted knights of old were desperate cowards by comparison. A fight in the open field, or jousting in the tournament, did not call out the manhood in a man as did the waiting till the great ship took the final plunge, in the knowledge that the seas round about were covered with loving and yearning witnesses whose own salvation was not assured.

With a degree of privacy assured, I squatted down and crapped out the biopackage I’d brought along. The human anal cavity has traditionally been a smuggler favorite for most of our existence on Earth. It made me really proud to carry that fine institution on into the starflight era. Yeah, right.

When people confront the past—their sins, wounds, and curses—they experience amazing joy, freedom, and spiritual growth. They move from just the assurance of their salvation to an experience of divine deliverance.

First, I give my gracious God an entire sacrifice of body and soul, with my most humble thanks for that assurance which His Blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the Salvation of the one, and the Resurrection of the other;

A shaking of heads, perhaps even an evil laugh, must go through our old, smart, experienced, self-assured world, when it hears the call of salvation of believing Christians: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us.”5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If you think that the gospel is all about what we can do, that the practice of it is optional, and that conversion is simply something that anyone can choose at any time, then I'm concerned that you'll think of evangelism as nothing more than a sales job where the prospect is to be won over to sign on the dotted line by praying a prayer, followed by an assurance that he is the proud owner of salvation.

But if there are spirits, I do not see why they are not everywhere, or may not be presumed to be so. You could argue that their voices may well be muffled by solid brick walls and thick plush furnishings and house-proud antimacassars. But the mahogany-polishers and the drapers' clerks are as much in need of salvation - as much desirous of assurance of a afterlife - as poets or peasants, in the last resort.

The Bible tells us how to be saved, but textualism goes on to make it tell us that we are saved, something which in the very nature of things it cannot do. Assurance of individual salvation is thus no more than a logical conclusion drawn from doctrinal premises, and the resultant experience wholly mental.

Whatever the depth of our darkness, God navigated it eons before it was dark. And whatever the duration of our nights, God was there long before it ever turned to night. Therefore, despite our frequent feelings to the contrary, there is no place we might be where God was not lovingly waiting for us an eternity before we got there.

If a sight of Christ's outward glory might give a rational assurance of His divinity, why might not an apprehension of He is spiritual glory do so too?

There is no assurance in life. It is only God that gives assurance.

Contemporary evangelicalism has been grossly affected by a “once saved always saved” teaching that argues for the possibility of salvation apart from sanctification.

being assured of our salvation is no arrogant stoutness. It is faith. It is not presumption. Rather it is confidence in God’s promise.

The knowledge of faith consists in assurance rather than in comprehension. . . . We add the words “sure and firm” in order to express a more solid constancy of persuasion.

Nothing conquers the chaos around me like the calm assurance that I am at peace with God.

I hope you have had spiritual experiences that have taught you that the only source of comfort when you are afflicted is the Word of God. Only it assures you of your salvation.

EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

Happy is he who believes the promise and feels assured of its fulfillment to himself in due time, leaving all else in the hands of infinite wisdom and love.

It is true that we need to make a one time decision to follow Jesus. But a true one time decision is followed by the every day decision to follow Jesus.

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane -- as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout -- there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremists have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. Faith-based violence was present long before Osama bin Laden, and it ill be with us long after his demise. Religious zealots like bin Laden, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, and Dan Lafferty are common to every age, just as zealots of other stripes are. In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. One has to look no further than individuals who feel compelled to devote their lives to becoming concert pianists, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of the extreme holds an allure that's irresistible. And a certain percentage of such fanatics will inevitably fixate on the matters of the spirit. The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end -- wealth, fame, eternal salvation -- but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic's worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture. Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits. Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the voice of God...

No better leaders guiding you on the Path of Allah Than the Qur'an and the sacred Traditions. Only Muhammad's hand and heart are able To take care of the secrets' treasury (the human heart). If your heart is filled by Ahmad's light, Be assured that you are saved from the Fire. قاید و سایق صراط‌الله به ز قرآن مدان و به ز اخبار جز به دست و دل محمد نیست حل و عقد خزانهٔ اسرار چون دلت بر ز نور احمد بود به یقین دان که ایمنی از نار

When the Lord saved us, He gave us His joy, peace, assurance of salvation and eternal life. But somehow in our minds, we often expect God to remove all the difficulties and hardships of our life from now on, so as believers we can enjoy an easier, more comfortable life than the rest of mankind. But Jesus did not make such a promise. He only promised to be with us always. In fact, He told us in advance that we would suffer persecution and trials—as He did—if we are to become His disciples.

The question then is not whether a person wants to pray and ask Jesus into his heart but if God has so worked in his heart through the preaching of the gospel that he is now repenting of sin and believing in Jesus Christ for the salvation of his soul.

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death? A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, wherefore by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him

Are you saved?” asks the fundamentalist. “I am redeemed,” answers the Catholic, “and like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling, with hopeful confidence—but not with a false assurance—and I do all this as the Church has taught, unchanged, from the time of Christ.

The mission of Jesus brought not a new teaching but a new event. It brought to people an actual foretaste of the eschatological salvation. Jesus did not promise the forgiveness of sins; he bestowed it. He did not simple assure people of the future fellowship of the Kingdom; he invited them into fellowship with himself as the bearer of the Kingdom. He did not merely promise them vindication in the day of judgment; he bestowed upon them the status of a present righteousness. He not only taught an eschatological deliverance from physical evil; he went about demonstrating the redeeming power of the Kingdom, delivering people from sickness and even death.

This is precisely the anxiety that Weber writes about in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Protestantism, he argued, introduced into Western culture a new, obsessive doubt about the status of one’s salvation. Those who cannot know whether or not they are chosen will do everything in their power to act as though they are, if only to ease their mind. They will go above and beyond what is required, in fact, because no assurance will ever convince them that their efforts have paid off. This doubt spurred a remarkable energy—the “Protestant work ethic,” a spirit of industriousness and self-regulation that created the necessary conditions for the rise of capitalism.

fasting, with prayer as its companion, is designed to increase spirituality; to foster a spirit of devotion and love of God; to increase faith in the hearts of men, thus assuring divine favor; to encourage humility and contrition of soul; to aid in the acquirement of rightousness; to teach man his nothingness and dependence upon God; and to hasten those who properly comply with the law of fasting along the path to salvation.

Soon, he wanted to preach on personal, as compared to institutional, salvation. Confessing Christ before others was an act of institutional salvation that most churchgoers had done long ago. He wanted to get at something more compelling, more life-changing-the process of personal confession, of personal relationship with Christ. He also wanted to point out that being a priest no more assured him of heaven than being a chipmunk would assure him of nuts for winter.

Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition ([34]definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. 7 And God’s peace [shall be yours, that [35]tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall [36]garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

John is also not saying that our obedience merits or earns God’s love (he has already established Christ’s propitiating sacrifice as the basis of our salvation; see 2:1–2), but rather that those who have God’s love show it, and this evidence of a life transformed by him is critical assurance of being united to him. Our obedience does not gain his love but evidences it. Our disobedience does not remove his love but does affect our assurance. We cannot confidently claim that his grace is ours if we show no evidence that our lives are his.

The constancy and faithfulness of God is an assured reality. Whereas even the apparently stable earth and heavens can perish (v. 25–26), more permanent and fixed even than these is God himself. He is the same, and his years have no end (v. 27). Hebrews 1:10–12 quotes these verses (Ps. 102:25–27) and applies them to Christ, through whom God created (cf. Heb. 1:2) and redeemed (cf. Heb. 2:17–18) the world. Believers of all generations may put their hope in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (cf. Heb. 13:8). He is their salvation. He is their hope. In him the people of God “shall dwell secure” (Ps. 102:28).

It was common among Muslim scholars to discuss the delicate balance between hope and fear. If one is overwhelmed with fear, he enters a psychological state of terror that leads to despair (ya’s)— that is, despair of God’s mercy. In the past, this religious illness was common, but it is less so today because, ironically, people are not as religious as they used to be. However, some of this is still found among certain strains of evangelical Christianity that emphasize Hellfire and eternal damnation. One sect believes that only 144,000 people will be saved based on its interpretation of a passage in the Book of Revelations. Nonetheless, an overabundance of hope is a disease that leads to complacency and dampens the aspiration to do good since salvation is something guaranteed (in one’s mind, that is). According to some Christian sects that believe in unconditional salvation, one can do whatever one wills (although he or she is encouraged to do good and avoid evil) and still be saved from Hell and gain entrance to Paradise. This is based on the belief that once one accepts Jesus a personal savior, there is nothing to fear about the Hereafter. Such religiosity can sow corruption because human beings simply cannot handle being assured of Paradise without deeds that warrant salvation. Too many will serve their passions like slaves and still consider themselves saved. In Islam, faith must be coupled with good works for one’s religion to be complete. This does not contradict the sound Islamic doctrine that “God’s grace alone saves us.” There is yet another kind of hope called umniyyah, which is blameworthy in Islam. Essentially, it is having hope but neglecting the means to achieve what one hopes for, which is often referred to as an “empty wish.” One hopes to become healthier, for example, but remains sedentary and is altogether careless about diet. To hope for the Hereafter but do nothing for it in terms of conduct and morality is also false hope.

It seems as if many church people have been living in Plato’s cave. They think the church enterprise is about “me.” What is at stake is my salvation. The me-and-my-salvation individual “does church” by making a fair exchange of time and money for eternal assurances. But the effect of teaching the fate of the individual soul downplays the beginning of God’s restoration now. It teaches that the important stuff comes later and that “going to heaven” is the benchmark of Christian life. Yet, the Christian life is so much more than any one person’s long-term survival. It is about the world’s future; it is about our hope turning our heads and hearts toward the world.

When the citizens of a dominant culture come to believe that the end is near for their way of life, they search for scapegoats—especially if they suspect that they themselves have been the agents of their own cultural decline. Unwilling to look in a mirror, unable to confront their own habits and tastes, these citizens choose to believe that the world they knew has been ripped away from them by stealth and subterfuge. The most insecure and frightened among them will also reach what they think is an obvious conclusion: that democracy, and especially liberal democracy, was the instrument of their culture’s destruction, and so to find salvation and assure their own survival, they must therefore reject democracy.

Our private and public prayer are our chief expression of our relation to God: it is in them chiefly that our waiting upon God must be exercised. If our waiting begin by quieting the activities of nature, and being still before God; if it bows and seeks to see God in His universal and almighty operation, alone able and always ready to work all good; if it yields itself to Him in the assurance that He is working and will work in us; if it maintains the place of humility and stillness, and surrenders until God’s Spirit has quickened the faith that He will perfect His work: it will indeed become the strength and the joy of the soul. Life will become one deep blessed cry: "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord." "My soul, wait thou only upon God

The zealot may be outwardly motivated by the anticipation of a great reward at the other end—wealth, fame, eternal salvation—but the real recompense is probably the obsession itself. This is no less true for the religious fanatic than for the fanatical pianist or fanatical mountain climber. As a result of his (or her) infatuation, existence overflows with purpose. Ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic’s worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture.

There are, after all, certain social duties that a priest has toward his parishioners, and if that priest is as I was--energetic and gregarious, with an aptitude for such occasions--these duties and occasions have a way of multiplying. There's a great attraction to this: he's doing what he likes to do, and he can tell himself that it's all for the honor and glory of God. He believes this, quite sincerely, and he finds ample support for such belief: on all sides he's assured that he is doing the much-needed job of "waking up the parish." Which is not a hard thing for a young priest to hear; he may even see himself as stampeding souls to their salvation. What he may not see is that he stands in some danger of losing himself in the strangely engrossing business of simply "being busy"; gradually he may find that he is rather uncomfortable whenever he is not "being busy." And, gradually too, he may find fewer and fewer moments in which he can absent himself from activity, in which he can be alone, can be silent, can be still--in which he can reflect and pray. And since these are precisely the moments that are necessary for all of us, in which spiritually we grow, in which, so to speak, we maintain and enrich our connection with God, then the loss of such moments is grave and perilous. Particularly so for a priest--particularly for a priest who suddenly finds that he can talk more easily to a parish committee than he can to God. Something within him will have atrophied from disuse; something precious, something vital. It will have gone almost without his knowing it, but one day, in a great crisis, say, he will reach for it--and it will not be there. And then...then he may find that the distance between the poles is not so great a distance after all....

THERE is a view of the Christian life that regards it as a sort of partnership, in which God and man have each to do their part. It admits that it is but little that man can do, and that little defiled with sin; still he must do his utmost--then only can he expect God to do His part. To those who think thus,it is extremely difficult to understand what Scripture means when it speaks of our being still and doing nothing, of our resting and waiting to see the salvation of God. It appears to them a perfect contradiction, when we speak of this quietness and ceasing from all effort as the secret of the highest activity of man and all his powers. And yet this is just what Scripture does teach. The explanation of the apparent mystery is to be found in this, that when God and man are spoken of as working together, there is nothing of the idea of a partnership between two partners who each contribute their share to a work. The relation is a very different one. The true idea is that of cooperation founded on subordination. As Jesus was entirely dependent on the Father for all His words and all His works, so the believer can do nothing of himself. What he can do of himself is altogether sinful. He must therefore cease entirely from his own doing, and wait for the working of God in him. As he ceases from self-effort, faith assures him that God does what He has undertaken, and works in him. And what God does is to renew, to sanctify, and waken all his energies to their highest power. So that just in proportion as he yields himself a truly passive instrument in the hand of God, will he be wielded of God as the active instrument of His almighty power. The soul in which the wondrous combination of perfect passivity with the highest activity is most completely realized, has the deepest experience of what the Christian life is.

authority. What we face now is the “sinner’s prayer.” And I am here to tell you, if there is anything I have declared war on, it is the sinner’s prayer. Yes, in the same way that dependence upon infant baptism for salvation,[29] in my opinion, was the golden calf [30] of the Reformation, the sinner’s prayer is the golden calf of today for the Baptists, the Evangelicals, and everyone else who has followed them. The sinner’s prayer has sent more people to hell than anything on the face of the earth! You say, “How can you say such a thing?” I answer: Go with me to Scripture and show me, please! I would love for you to show me where anyone evangelized that way. The Scripture does not tell us that Jesus Christ came to the nation of Israel and said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, now who would like to ask me into their hearts? I see that hand.” That is not what it says. He said, “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mar 1:15)! Men today are trusting in the fact that at least one time in their life they prayed a prayer, and someone told them they were saved because they were sincere enough. And so if you ask them, “Are you saved?” they do not say, “Yes I am, because I am looking unto Jesus and there is mighty evidence giving me assurance of being born again.” No!—they say instead, “One time in my life I prayed a prayer.” Now they live like devils, but they prayed a prayer!

It is possible for a man to know whether God has called him or not, and he may know it too beyond a doubt. He may know it as surely as if he read it with his own eyes; nay, he may know it more surely than that, for if I read a thing with my eyes, even my eyes may deceived me, the testimony of sense may be false, but the testimony of the Spirit must be true. We have the witness of the Spirit within, bearing witness with our spirits that we are born of God. There is such a thing on earth as an infallible assurance of our election. Let a man once get that, and it will anoint his head with fresh oil, it will clothe him with the white garment of praise, and put the son of the angel into his mouth. Happy, happy man! who is fully assured of his interest in the covenant of grace, in the blood of atonement, and in the glories of heaven! Such men there are here this very day. Let them 'rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice.' What would some of you give if you could arrive at this assurance? Mark, if you anxiously desire to know, you may know. If your heart pants to read its title clear it shall do so ere long. No man ever desired Christ in his heart with a living and longing desire, who did not find Him sooner or later. If thou hast a desire, God has given it thee. If thou pantest, and criest, and groanest after Christ, even this is His gift; bless Him for it. Thank Him for little grace, and ask Him for great grace. He has given thee hope, ask for faith; and when He gives thee faith, ask for assurance; and when thou gettest assurance, ask for full assurance; and when thou hast obtained full assurance, ask for enjoyment; and when thou hast enjoyment, ask for glory itself; and He shall surely give it thee in His own appointed season.

This much is certain: had I a daughter of an age where there could be any question of her being influenced by you, I would most assuredly warn her, the more so if she were also intellectually gifted. And if there were no reason to warn her against you, then I myself, who nevertheless imagine I might be your match, if not in suppleness then at least in firmness and constancy, if not in the variable and brilliant then at least in steadiness – then I myself, with a certain reluctance, sometimes actually feel that you are corrupting me, that I am letting myself be carried away by your exuberance, by the apparently good-natured wit with which you mock everything, that I am letting myself be borne away into this aesthetic-intellectual intoxication in which you live. In a way, then, I feel to some degree uncertain towards you, at times being too severe, at others too indulgent. However, that is not so strange, for you are the epitome of all possibility; so that one may see in you the possibility at one moment of your own ruin, at another of your own salvation. Every mood, every thought, good or evil, cheerful or sad, you pursue to its farthest limit, yet more in abstraction than concretely, so the pursuit is itself more like a mood from which nothing results except the knowledge of it, though not enough to make it more difficult or easy next time to abandon yourself to that same mood; for you keep it as a constant possibility. So it is almost as though you could be reproached for everything and nothing at all, because it is and yet is not attributable to you. You admit or don’t admit, according to circumstances, to having had such a mood. But you are not available for any charge. The important thing for you is that you have had the mood completely, with proper pathos.

Guilt and self-image. When someone says, “I can’t forgive myself,” it indicates that some standard or condition or person is more central to this person’s identity than the grace of God. God is the only God who forgives — no other “god” will. If you cannot forgive yourself, it is because you have failed your true god — that is, whatever serves as your real righteousness — and it is holding you captive. The moralists’ false god is usually a god of their imagination, a god that is holy and demanding but not gracious. The relativist/pragmatist’s false god is usually some achievement or relationship. This is illustrated by the scene in the movie The Mission in which Rodrigo Mendoza, the former slave-trading mercenary played by Robert de Niro, converts to the church and as a way of showing penance drags his armor and weapons up steep cliffs. In the end, however, he picks up his armor and weapons to fight against the colonialists and dies at their hand. His picking up his weapons demonstrates he never truly converted from his mercenary ways, just as his penance demonstrated he didn’t get the message of forgiveness in the first place. The gospel brings rest and assurance to our consciences because Jesus shed his blood as a “ransom” for our sin (Mark 10:45). Our reconciliation with God is not a matter of keeping the law to earn our salvation, nor of berating ourselves when we fail to keep it. It is the “gift of God” (Rom 6:23). Without the gospel, our self-image is based on living up to some standards — either our own or someone else’s imposed on us. If we live up to those standards, we will be confident but not humble; if we don’t live up to them, we will be humble but not confident. Only in the gospel can we be both enormously bold and utterly sensitive and humble, for we are simul justus et peccator, both perfect and sinner!

February 2 MORNING “Without the shedding of blood is no remission.” — Hebrews 9:22 THIS is the voice of unalterable truth. In none of the Jewish ceremonies were sins, even typically, removed without blood-shedding. In no case, by no means can sin be pardoned without atonement. It is clear, then, that there is no hope for me out of Christ; for there is no other blood-shedding which is worth a thought as an atonement for sin. Am I, then, believing in Him? Is the blood of His atonement truly applied to my soul? All men are on a level as to their need of Him. If we be never so moral, generous, amiable, or patriotic, the rule will not be altered to make an exception for us. Sin will yield to nothing less potent than the blood of Him whom God hath set forth as a propitiation. What a blessing that there is the one way of pardon! Why should we seek another? Persons of merely formal religion cannot understand how we can rejoice that all our sins are forgiven us for Christ’s sake. Their works, and prayers, and ceremonies, give them very poor comfort; and well may they be uneasy, for they are neglecting the one great salvation, and endeavouring to get remission without blood. My soul, sit down, and behold the justice of God as bound to punish sin; see that punishment all executed upon thy Lord Jesus, and fall down in humble joy, and kiss the dear feet of Him whose blood has made atonement for thee. It is in vain when conscience is aroused to fly to feelings and evidences for comfort: this is a habit which we learned in the Egypt of our legal bondage. The only restorative for a guilty conscience is a sight of Jesus suffering on the cross. “The blood is the life thereof,” says the Levitical law, and let us rest assured that it is the life of faith and joy and every other holy grace. “Oh! how sweet to view the flowing Of my Saviour’s precious blood; With divine assurance knowing He has made my peace with

Since God gives us grace day by day, our response is with our whole life, day by day. The way we choose to live the days of our lives is our way of saying thanks to God. Christian commitment is therefore not a way to be assured of salvation. Commitment as a Christian is on the resurrection side of the cross. It is a free choice made by those who have already been chosen in Christ.

The logic of hell is nothing other than the logic of human free will, in so far as this is identical with freedom of choice. The theological argument runs as follows: “God, whose being is love, preserves our human freedom, for freedom is the condition of love. Although God’s love goes, and has gone, to the uttermost, plumbing the depth of hell, the possibility remains for each human being of a final rejection of God, and so of eternal life.” Let us gather some arguments against this logic of hell. The first conclusion, it seems to me, is that it is inhumane, for there are not many people who can enjoy free will where their eternal fate in heaven or hell is concerned. Anyone who faces men and women with the choice of heaven or hell, does not merely expect too much of them. It leaves them in a state of uncertainty, because we cannot base the assurance of our salvation on the shaky ground of our own decision. Is the presupposition of this logic of hell perhaps an illusion—the presupposition that it all depends on the human beings’ free will? The logic of hell seems to me not merely inhumane but also extremely atheistic: here the human being in his freedom of choice is his own lord and god. His own will is his heaven—or his hell. God is merely the accessory who puts that will into effect. If I decide for heaven, God must put me there; if I decide for hell, he has to leave me there. If God has to abide by our free decision, then we can do with him what we like. Is that “the love of God?” Free human beings forge their own happiness and are their own executioners. They do not just dispose over their lives here; they decide on their eternal destinies as well. So they have no need of any God at all. After God has perhaps created us free as we are, he leaves us to our fate. Carried to this ultimate conclusion, the logic of hell is secular humanism, as Feuerbach, Marx and Nietzsche already perceived a long time ago. The Christian doctrine of hell is to be found in the gospel of Christ’s descent into hell. In the crucified Christ we see what hell is, because through him it has been overcome. Judgment is not God’s last word. Judgment established in the world the divine righteousness on which the new creation is to be built. But God’s last word is “Behold I make all things new” (Rev 21: 5). From this no one is excluded. Love is God’s compassion with the lost. Transforming grace is God’s punishment for sinners. It is not the right to choose that defines the reality of human freedom. It is the doing of the good.

The seal, the Holy Spirit, is God’s fear-defeating, peace-giving promise to us, the assurance of our own salvation.

Rome claims that most “assurances,” in the final analysis, are based on conjecture, opinion, and ideas that come from the hearts of people whom the Bible defines as deeply rooted in deceit. The Scriptures tell us that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9), so it is easy for us, Rome says, to deceive ourselves and to rest our confidence about the state of our souls on mere opinion. Consequently, assurance of salvation is not possible apart from some special act of revelation.

No man can rightly understand the power of indwelling corruption who has not savingly felt his own; nor how the law is the strength of sin, till that law be closely applied to his own conscience; nor why the gospel offer of Christ as a savior must be absolutely free and made to sinners as such, till he himself has had to struggle with sharp and strong convictions. No man can rightly apprehend how the assured belief of full and free salvation through Christ constrains to universal obedience till God's redeeming love be shed abroad in his heart; nor how much a disposition that doubts and staggers at the promises of eternal life, or which leads a man to recommend himself to God's favor by his good works, tends to hinder the cheerful progress in grace and true virtue till he himself has experienced the hurt of it.

To put it another way, Covenant Theology is the Bible’s way of explaining and deepening our understanding of: (1) the atonement [the meaning of the death of Christ]; (2) assurance [the basis of our confidence of communion with God and enjoyment of his promises]; (3) the sacraments [signs and seals of God’s covenant promises — what they are and how they work]; and (4) the continuity of redemptive history [the unified plan of God’s salvation]. Covenant Theology is also an hermeneutic, an approach to understanding the Scripture — an approach that attempts to biblically explain the unity of biblical revelation.[15] A

We can be assured of salvation and feel that assurance aright only as we keep our eyes off ourselves and our performance and fix our gaze on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of true saving and sanctifying faith.

The text asks, What is your only comfort in life and in death? The creature may answer, That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself but to my faithful saviour, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and completely freed me from all the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven, not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly

As with the other Pauline passages that I have analyzed, similarities surface: (1) each moment is held as distinct but integrally connected to the others; and (2) salvation is not viewed as fully completed at the moments of redemption accomplished or redemption applied, but remains an eschatological hope. In addition to these similarities, Romans 5:9–10 reveals a new link, an unbreakable bond. Paul’s whole argument for the believer’s assurance of salvation at the final judgment rests on the connection between redemption accomplished and applied on the one hand, and redemption consummated on the other. As in Titus 3:3–5, redemption applied occurs through redemption accomplished, but now the synergy of redemption accomplished and applied together guarantees redemption consummated: if God has already done the most difficult thing—reconcile and justify us by Christ’s death—how much more (πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον) will he rescue us on that last day of his wrath. Paul stresses his point by twice using this greater-to-lesser argument.

Perhaps theological attempts to explain the destruction of churches or of “Christian nations” are asking the wrong question, if they judge success and failure by the standards of the secular world. When, for instance, a Christian community loses political or cultural hegemony, historians might conventionally think of it as having failed, as if the faith must of necessity be allied to political power, and even military victory. Although such a linkage to worldly success was commonplace in earlier times, it has fewer adherents today. Instead of seeking explanations for the loss of divine favor, Christians should rather stress the deep suspicion about the secular order that runs through the New Testament, where the faithful are repeatedly warned that they will live in a hostile world, and a transient one. Nowhere in that scripture are Christians offered any assurance that they will hold political power, or indeed that salvation is promised to descendants or to later members of a particular community. Perhaps the real mystery of Christianity is not in explaining failure or eclipse at particular times, but rather in accounting for the successes elsewhere.

Although temporary believers, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favour of God and state of salvation, awhich hope of theirs shall perish; yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured b that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them cashamed

The law of sin wants to take you captive to sin, and despite your assurance of salvation in Christ, this is serious stuff. Any sin can become enslaving.

First, suffering brings believers closer to Christ. Paul wrote, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). Suffering in the cause of Christ yields the fruit of better understanding of what Jesus went through in His suffering. Second, suffering assures the believer that he belongs to Christ. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). Because “a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master” (Matt. 10:24), we will suffer. Paul warned Timothy, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Peter tells suffering Christians, “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet. 4:14). Suffering causes believers to sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, which gives assurance of salvation. Third, suffering brings a future reward. “If indeed we suffer with [Christ] in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:17-18). “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Fourth, suffering can result in the salvation of others. Church history is filled with accounts of those who came to Christ after watching other Christians endure suffering. Fifth, suffering frustrates Satan. He wants suffering to harm us, but God brings good out of it.

For more than two centuries, black people had resisted Christianity, often with the tacit acquiescence of their owners. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Christian missionaries who attempted to bring slaves into the fold confronted a hostile planter class, whose only interest in the slaves' spirituality was to denigrate it as idolatry. Westward-moving planters showed little sympathy with slaves who prayed when they might be working and even less patience with separate gatherings of converts, which they suspected to be revolutionary cabals. An 1822 Mississippi law barring black people from meeting without white supervision spoke directly to the planters' fears. But the trauma of the Second Middle Passage and the cotton revolution sensitized transplanted slaves to the evangelicals' message. Young men and women forcibly displaced from their old homes were eager to find alternative sources of authority and comfort. Responding to the evangelical message, they found new meaning in the emotional deliverance of conversion and the baptismal rituals of the church. In turning their lives over to Christ, the deportees took control of their own destiny. White missionaries, some of them still committed to the evangelical egalitarianism of the eighteenth-century revivals, welcomed black believers into their churches. Slaves - sometimes carrying letters of separation from their home congregations - were present in the first evangelical services in Mississippi and Alabama. The earliest religious associations listed black churches, and black preachers - free and slave - won fame for the exercise of 'their gift.' Established denominational lines informed much of slaves' Christianity. The large Protestant denominations - Baptist and Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian - made the most substantial claims, although Catholicism had a powerful impact all along the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Florida. From this melange, slaves selectively appropriated those ideas that best fit their own sacred universe and secular world. With little standing in the church of the master, these men and women fostered a new faith. For that reason, it was not the church of the master or even the church of the missionary that attracted black converts; they much preferred their own religious conclaves. These fugitive meetings were often held deep in the woods in brush tents called 'arbors.' Kept private by overturning a pot to muffle the sound of their prayers, these meetings promised African-American spirituality and mixed black and white religious forms into a theological amalgam that white clerics found unrecognizable - what one planter-preacher called 'a jumble of Protestantism, Romanism, and Fetishism.' Under the brush arbor, notions of secular and sacred life took on new meanings. The experience of spiritual rebirth and the conviction that Christ spoke directly to them armed slaves against their owners, assuring them that they too were God's children, perhaps even his chosen people. It infused daily life with the promise of the Great Jubilee and eternal life that offered a final escape from earthly captivity. In the end, it would be they - not their owners - who would stand at God's side and enjoy the blessing of eternal salvation.

If the Blessed Virgin Mary were to come down from Heaven to appear to you and speak to you these consoling words, "Fear not, my child, I promise thee to take upon myself the important work of thy salvation, to entreat my Son on thy behalf, to persist in my entreaties until He promises to make thee a partaker of eternal felicity," would not your heart overflow with happiness? Would you not exult and rejoice at this favor on the part of the Blessed Mother of God and no longer entertain a doubt of your salvation, since she had assured you of her all-powerful intercession?

Further, I mean that God offers salvation to individuals and concomitantly grace enables them to make a real choice to either follow Christ or not follow Christ. The means of this grace enablement include but are not limited to: Gods’ salvific love for all (John 3:16), God’s manifestation of His power so that all may know He is the Sovereign (Isaiah 45:21—22) and Creator (Romans 1:18—20), which assures that everyone has opportunity to know about Him. Christ paying for all sins (John 1:29), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7—11), working of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 6:1—6), enlightening of the Son (John 1:9), God’s teaching (John 6:45), God opening hearts (Acts 16:14), and the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16), without such redemptive grace, no one seeks or comes to God (Romans 3:11). Further, I believe that man, because of these gracious provisions and workings of God, can choose to seek and find God (Jeremiah 29:13; Acts 17:11—12). Moreover, no one can come to God without God drawing (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all men, individuals (John 12:32). The same Greek word for draw, helkuō, is used in both verses.” About 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.”140 Other grace enablements may include providential workings in and through other people, situations, and timing or circumstances that are a part of grace to provide an opportunity for every individual to choose to follow Christ.

For Irenaeus, salvation came by having faith in the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus; according to the Gnostics, salvation came by learning the secret truths that Christ taught concerning how to escape this world of the body. I should stress that these truths were not available to just anybody. Only those who had the spark of the divine within could receive them. Others—those without the spark—belonged to the god of this world, the creator who made matter and all the misery and suffering connected with it. These others could not know the truth because they were not from above. This made it exceedingly difficult to argue with Gnostics. If you claimed they were wrong, they could simply point out that you didn’t “know.” If you interpreted a passage of Scripture to counter their claims, they could smugly assure you that you misunderstood the passage. If you claimed that their interpretation violated that natural meaning of the text, they could say that the real meaning lies beneath the surface, there only for those with eyes to see.

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988), I would not think it worth the trouble to argue, as he does, that—given the paradoxes and seemingly irreconcilable pronouncements of scriptures on the final state of all things—Christians may be allowed to dare to hope for the salvation of all. In fact, I have very small patience for this kind of “hopeful universalism,” as it is often called. As far as I am concerned, anyone who hopes for the universal reconciliation of creatures with God must already believe that this would be the best possible ending to the Christian story; and such a person has then no excuse for imagining that God could bring any but the best possible ending to pass without thereby being in some sense a failed creator. The position I want to attempt to argue, therefore, to see how well it holds together, is far more extreme: to wit, that, if Christianity is in any way true, Christians dare not doubt the salvation of all, and that any understanding of what God accomplished in Christ that does not include the assurance of a final apokatastasis in which all things created are redeemed and joined to God is ultimately entirely incoherent and unworthy of rational faith. This is an exorbitant and somewhat insolent claim, I realize, and I would not make it if I did not earnestly believe every alternative view of the matter to be ultimately unsustainable.

No diversion can prevent Jesus from making haste to come to your rescue. He is telling us to trust Him. Stop worrying whether He is too busy or distracted to save us from our dilemmas, heartaches, and struggles because He is helping others. He is also demonstrating the limitless nature of his power.

You need to experience this salvation from the bondage of sin, experience this inner peace and assurance of salvation, experience this deliverance from demonic oppression, experience this transformation of mind, life, and character, then can you really understand that this Jesus we're talking about is not a myth.

Romans 5–8 is, from one point of view, all about hope: the solid, sure hope that all those who belong to God through faith in his action in Jesus are assured of final salvation.

As Richard Lovelace puts it: We may need to challenge more, and comfort less, in our evangelism and discipleship. We need to make it harder for people to retain assurance of salvation when they move into serious sin. . . . We need to tell some persons who think they have gotten saved to get lost. The Puritans were biblically realistic about this; we have become sloppy and sentimental in promoting assurance under any circumstances.32

When we come to Christ, God not only forgives us, he also adopts us. Through a dramatic series of events, we go from condemned orphans with no hope to adopted children with no fear. Here is how it happens. You come before the judgment seat of God full of rebellion and mistakes. Because of his justice he cannot dismiss your sin, but because of his love he cannot dismiss you. So, in an act which stunned the heavens, he punished himself on the cross for your sins. God’s justice and love are equally honored. And you, God’s creation, are forgiven. But the story doesn’t end with God’s forgiveness. . . . It would be enough if God just cleansed your name, but he does more. He gives you his name. The Great House of God DAY 8 To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. ROMANS 4:5 NKJV God wants you to believe in him. “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). The phrase “believes in him” doesn’t digest well in our day of self-sufficient spiritual food. “Believe in yourself ” is the common menu selection of our day. Try harder. Work longer. Dig deeper. Self-reliance is our goal. And tolerance is our virtue. “In him” smacks of exclusion. Don’t all paths lead to heaven? Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and humanism? Christ walks upriver on this topic. Salvation is found, not in self or in them, but in him. Paul assures salvation to the most unlikely folks:

and qall who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 13rBut evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But you must scontinue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15and that from childhood you have known tthe Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Do you know that when we speak the Word of God it moves the heart of God to act in our favour? Heaven and Earth will pass, but God’s Word will remain forever. We can trust in the surety of God’s Word. “For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returns not thither but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud; that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So shall my Word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55: 10-11). We can have confident assurance in the spoken Word of God and we can also trust in the credibility of God’s Word. God is ready to fulfill every word spoken. (Jeremiah 1: 12) We can trust in the authenticity of God’s Word. “Thy word is true from the very beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endures forever.” (Psalm 119: 160). “The grass withered, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand forever.” (Isaiah 40: 8) From creation, the Word of God remains authentic.(Adapted from: Unlocking God’s Power, Favor and Blessings in Your Life) So today, take the Word of God and speak it over your situation; believe in faith that the spoken Word, is working to bring about deliverance, healing, blessings and salvation; wait patiently for its manifestation.

The suretyship of Jesus is the assurance that God will keep his salvation covenant with his people. God has made a covenant of grace with us through the Lord Jesus Christ. “By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant” (Heb. 7:22). Salvation isn’t the result of some kind of an agreement between sinners and God. It’s the result of an eternal covenant between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Because of this eternal covenant, salvation involves all three Persons in the Godhead (Eph. 1:3–14; 1 Peter 1:2).

Chapter 11—The Call of Abraham After the dispersion from Babel idolatry again became well-nigh universal, and the Lord finally left the hardened transgressors to follow their evil ways, while he chose Abraham, of the line of Shem, and made him the keeper of his law for future generations. Abraham had grown up in the midst of superstition and heathenism. Even his father’s household, by whom the knowledge of God had been preserved, were yielding to the seductive influences surrounding them, and they “served other gods” than Jehovah. But the true faith was not to become extinct. God has ever preserved a remnant to serve him. Adam, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Shem, in unbroken line, had preserved from age to age the precious revealings of his will. The son of Terah became the inheritor of this holy trust. Idolatry invited him on every side, but in vain. Faithful among the faithless, uncorrupted by the prevailing apostasy, he steadfastly adhered to the worship of the one true God. “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.” Psalm 145:18. He communicated his will to Abraham, and gave him a distinct knowledge of the requirements of his law and of the salvation that would be accomplished through Christ. There was given to Abraham the promise, especially dear to the people of that age, of a numerous posterity and of national greatness: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” And to this was added the assurance, precious above every other to the inheritor of faith, that of his line the Redeemer of the world should come: “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Yet, as the first condition of fulfillment, there was to be a test of faith; a sacrifice was demanded. [126]

As honey drips from a honeycomb, and milk flows from a woman full of love for her children, so is my hope upon you, my God. As a fountain gushes forth its water, so does my heart gush forth the praise of the Lord and my lips pour out praise to him, my face exults in the jubilation he brings, my spirit is jubilant at his love and by him my soul is illumined. He who holds the Lord in awe may have confidence, for his salvation is assured; he will gain immortal life, and those who receive this are incorruptible. Hallelujah!

There appears, however, to be a complete disconnect between John's teaching and what we find in so many of our evangelical churches today. In our right desire to see as many people as possible come to faith in Christ and join our churches, I am afraid that we have watered down John's teaching of salvation and assurance.3 Instead, people are being invited to walk an aisle and repeat a prayer of salvation without any counsel to see whether they really understand the historic gospel, and without any teaching on what the Christian life looks like. If this were not enough, many churches then inundate these “new converts” with assurance and the pithy slogan “once saved always saved.” The unfortunate result is that many believe that their lifestyle is irrelevant because they can never lose their salvation. Sadly, we are seeing the evidence of generations of church members who were called to make such a profession of faith, and now many of our churches are filled with those who are still deceived and living in the darkness, as made evident through their apathetic church involvement, their tipping of God rather than sacrificial giving, youth and young adult Bible studies where sexualimmoralityruns rampant, a divorce rate in our churches that keeps pace with society at large, and a complete disinterest in loving and serving other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Your salvation is a free gift, made possible only because God planned it . . .Christ paid for it . . . and the Holy Spirit assures you of it.

God sustains and accompanies every human activity. Nothing should therefore be foreign or extrinsic to the Church’s vision. But God also works not only through us but directly in extraordinary ways to assure our salvation and set everyone free.

Europe was set free largely thanks to the Protestant reformation that began to teach that believers don’t have any assurances to salvation through the back doors.

Dear Lord. Assure her of the grace that you offer freely. Convict her heart of the new covenant established by the shedding of your blood at Calvary allowing her to drink from the living waters of salvation. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.” “I don’t think it worked,” she said afterwards. “If you are sincere in your remorse, which I believe you are, then it worked.” “How come I don’t feel any different?” He took her hand in his. “That’s because you haven’t forgiven yourself yet. I assure you, Gwen, there is nothing you have done that Christ hasn’t forgiven. You are saved by grace, not by works. By faith alone you receive salvation.

Do you need assistance with your dress?” “I do not.” She shifted, and Ben heard her draw in her breath at the sight of him peeled down to his breeches and boots. He sat on the bed, giving her his back so he could tug off his footwear. Maggie came around the bed and sat beside him. “This doesn’t feel right.” When he wanted to hurl his boots hard against the bedroom wall, Ben instead set them tidily beside the bed. “What doesn’t feel right about it?” “It’s broad daylight and we’re not married and we’re not marrying, either.” “This marriage business troubles you exceedingly,” he observed. “What is about to happen between us has happened before, Maggie, and at your instigation in even broader daylight than this. I believe you enjoyed yourself, and I most assuredly know I did. Do we need to complicate matters beyond that?” She turned green eyes on him, luminous with some emotion he could not name. “I suppose not.” Her busy, brilliant mind wanted to complicate it—he could see that much in her troubled expression—but his not-very-brilliant, lust-clouded mind was determined on simplicity. He took her hand and put it over the fall of his trousers. “It isn’t complicated at all. You want me, and I’m happy to oblige you. Take the dress off, Maggie, or I will tear it from your body.” And this—this sincere threat of sartorial violence—was what finally won him a small, impish smile. “You would not tear it off me, but you might ruck it up and wrinkle it beyond salvation.