One of the greatest problems facing believers is lack of assurance. We have been mugged by modernity. What's our basis for assurance?
One of the greatest problems facing believers these days is a lack of assurance. We have been mugged by modernity. Scratch a believer and you will likely find someone unsure of their salvation. The reason for this lack of assurance is often related to our attempts to confirm salvation by how good we feel or by how good we are. People work at understanding a person’s standing with God on the basis of our goodness, but a simple look around us and in us says that every day we fail miserably.
Neither can our standing with God be determined by judging whether we have a cheived a satisfactory level of knowledge. Our knowledge is imperfect. Efforts at either peering into Heaven or the Godhead lead to silliness, and efforts at achieving perfection of doctrine lead to denominational infighting. The Apostle John's point was that God's love is beyond calculation, for not only does he call us his children, he makes us his children. The day is coming when we, the children of God, will not only know Him, but we will be like Him. This should not lead to sloppiness in doctrine or our way of leaving, rather it gives us the hope that more will be revealed. More what? More everything. But in God's good time. He has called us and so he will equip us. The fact that we desire to know God more shows that the Holy Spirit is working in us and if we have that we know we are under God's care and provision.
This truth produces great confidence, it produces great assurance, and this assurance is supported by an amazing biblical fact: a believer is orientated toward righteousness. This doesn't mean that a believer won't sin. Sin is an infection that never goes away, but can be dealt with. But being oriented toward righteousness means that we we are being pointed toward Christ-likeness. No one achieves perfection in this life, but we will all reach this goal one day. So we need to take it easy on ourselves and go easy on others. We all struggle with great burdens. However, a person who has truly experienced the mercy of God will tend to be merciful - not perfectly merciful, but oriented toward mercy. A forgiven person forgives, strives to forgive. A person bathed in the purity of Jesus tries to express that purity in their lives.
So, our standing as God's children rests on his grace alone. As for our personal piety, it but demonstrates orientation, an orientation toward Christ, or an orientation toward lawlessness. As for sin, the truth is there is no sinless Christian; we all fall down. Oriented toward righteousness with knowledge that it is possible only by grace helps us to live in God’s forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves when we fall, forgiving those who fall against us, we rise and move toward our goal of being more like Christ. This is the way to understand the progressive sanctification of those whom He has called to be Saints in light. Our assurance rests not in feelings, or self-judgments, but in Scriptures like this. Ponder it, take it in deeply, and rest in the fact that more shall be revealed:
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
-1 John 3:1-7
