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“Are You Confident in Your Salvation?”
Categories: Christian life, edification, faith, hope, salvation"Why are you confident in your salvation?"
If you answer, "I am not confident in my salvation," that needs to be remedied! God wants you to be confident. Read 1 John 1.1-4, and see that God wants your joy to be full. You should "know that [you] know Him" (2.3), and you should "know that [you] are in Him" (2.5).
But allow me to address those who are confident in their salvation. Why are you confident?
Are you confident because of your church or your minister?
"I'm a member of the right church, and my preacher preaches the right doctrine."
Let us immediately dismiss this, for no person or body of men can ever save a soul.
For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written:
“As I live, says the LORD,
Every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall confess to God.”
So each of us shall give account of himself to God. (Rom. 14.10-12)
Are you confident because you follow God's laws?
Does your assurance come from having been baptized (in the correct way and for the right reasons)? Does your confidence swell each first day of the week as you assemble with the saints and correctly partake of the Supper of the Lord? "I'm obedient."
Every Bible preacher under both Old and New Covenants preached, "Repent, and bear fruits worthy of repentance." The fruit of a changed heart surely should be seen in us, giving us a level of confidence as to our position with the Lord. However, the fruit is merely a sign of our salvation and not what causes it. The good works we do may reveal that we have been saved, but the works themselves don't save!
"He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy..." (Titus 3.5)
Are you confident because of your inward repentance and faith?
"I know my heart is right."
Please don't depend upon some attitude of your heart, some inherent internal goodness. Can you be saved without faith and repentance? Hardly! But these, like the good works above, only expose the fact that you are saved!
If we are honest, we know we are not worthy because the intents of our heart continue to hold traces of evil motives and weaknesses to temptation. When is faith ever strong enough? When is repentance ever full? We might believe our latest repentance came from complete and utter brokenness, but in a few more days our weaknesses resurface again! O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
From Where Does True Confidence Come?
Our confidence, ultimately, comes from Jesus Christ, the One whose word never falls to the ground, whose promises are never broken. He exists, He lives, and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Our confidence should never be in our seeking but in the One Whom we seek! Christ is our Yes and our Amen.
"For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." (2 Cor. 1.20-22)
Brothers and Sisters, rest confidently in this, that God saves in Christ, not because of works we accomplish but because of THE WORK Christ has done and the work the Holy Spirit continues to do in us.
In Christ do I trust. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2.20).
