How I Found Assurance of Salvation

Assurance of Salvation and the Early Struggle with Doubt

Someone asked me a number of times, actually, to talk about my own struggles with assurance of salvation. And I said, I actually had Pastor Joel Webben on the show a few years ago, because he wrote a book about 1 John and went through these tests, and that's usually the book people recommend.

But I told him I might do something, and so here's the something I'm doing, where I just speak kind of from the heart about my own experiences, and maybe this will help some people out there. So when I was very young, I was six years old, I made a profession of faith, got baptized, and then as time went on, I was 12 or 13, and I realized I couldn't really remember too well when I made that profession of faith, and I wondered whether or not it was legitimate.

And of course, this is a time in life when you're starting to have more experiences outside the home, you're being exposed to things, you're having to make decisions you didn't make before, and there's temptations arising that weren't there before.

And I started wondering, was I ever really a Christian? I have sinful desires. Could I be a Christian and have sinful desires? And this was a very hard thing for me as a young teenager, because at the time, I was very focused on making a decision and praying a prayer.

And even though we had good theology in my house, my parents really weren't to blame for any of this, but I think it's just a natural human tendency to wanna earn your way. And so I was told correctly that it's the grace of Christ that saves you, but you need to believe in him.

And so I got really focused on that belief part, right? Did I really believe? Was it 100 belief or was it 99 .9 and I was a hair off? And that hair was gonna make the difference between heaven and hell.

So I would just pray all the time, sometimes every day, Lord, if I'm not saved, I'm praying right now that I would be saved, that I would, I wanna let you know that I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust in his sacrificial death.

I knew that he came to this earth, he died, he was buried, he rose again, right?

I would go through the whole thing.

And this might make me feel better for a little while, but then I would sin or I would feel like I wasn't experiencing God the way I should. And that would just catapult me into having to pray this again.

What 1 John Means by Sin and the Tests of Assurance

And this went on for, I guess, a few years. And finally, actually my dad, I think, helped me through this a little bit. I was reading 1 John and I mean, that freaked me out, right?

That's one of the things,.

If you give someone 1 John and you say, well, look at the tests in 1 John, you start seeing things like, and if anyone sins, the love of the father is not in him. And you're like, oh my goodness, I sin.

How can I be a Christian? But obviously 1 John 1 .9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just a forgiven cleanse is the important verse to combat that because there's an assumption that the audience in mind here is susceptible to sin and they're going to sin.

And he even writes, little children, I write this so that you will not sin. So he doesn't want them to sin, but he's recognizing they're going to. And this is part of progressive sanctification. And even the term sin here, the grammatical structure is a lifestyle of sin, a pattern of sin.

It's not a one-time, it's not like a punctiliar, you sinned and now you're not a Christian. So anyway, I was freaked out at first reading 1 John. I remember thinking things like, what's the difference between a Christian and non-Christian?

A Christian should have more joy. A Christian should have more love, right? Because I'm reading here and if you're not a Christian, you don't have any love for the brother. So I should have love for the brethren, right?

That's one of the characteristics of a Christian. And I remember thinking like, there's non-Christians I know seem pretty nice. And now I understand a little bit more of how to, why that's the case, right?

There's other passages that show that non-Christians, even think of like the rich man and Lazarus, right? Lazarus is on his way to hell and is caring about his family. Like there is a natural instinctual love that God puts into people.

That should be something that is common to people, non-Christians or Christians. Obviously suppressed by sin in a non-Christian and so forth. It's not the kind of good that pleases God in a spiritual sense, but people can be nice.

People can be happy. People can exude virtues in a sense. I mean, they can on a temporal level in the realm of fulfilling obligations in this world, in the natural relationships God has given us, people can actually show virtue.

They can sacrifice. We see that in war, right? Sacrificing for your buddy. And is that person born again?

Sometimes they're not.

Christ's Work, Not My Decision, as the Ground of Justification

So anyway, that was one of my hangups too. It's like, I needed to see this huge difference. And there is a difference. Here's the thing, there really is a difference between Christians and non-Christians, a true Christian.

A true Christian is going to have more peace, ultimately. A Christian, an authentic Christian is going to have the fruit of the spirit. And this is joy, this is peace, this is patience on an ultimate, in an ultimate sense, on a level that's beyond just the temporal world.

Knowing where you go when you die, knowing that Jesus Christ has paid for your sins. So anyway, back to the assurance part of it. What really helped me was understanding what I just told you about. First, John, okay, this is a lifestyle pattern.

Doesn't mean I'm not a Christian just because I sinned. Understanding that non-believers would have even more and more authentic and more deep spiritual joy and peace and all of that if they were Christians.

But also trusting Christ directly for my justification. I think that was the biggest thing. I was trusting in myself and my own decision. I was so focused on my own decision. Was I authentic enough? Was I 100 or 99

Was I putting my full trust in Christ? And whenever I was asking those questions, who am I looking at? I'm looking at me. I'm making the measuring rod, I'm making the decision, I'm making the thing that makes the difference, my own decision, instead of the work of Jesus Christ.

And it's the work of Jesus Christ that actually saves us. It's not our work. It's not our faith even. It's not in the sense that none of us are gonna have perfect faith, right? None of us have the faith of Jesus Christ.

But we do have faith that God has given us. And that faith is, it is the instrument that God uses. But it is Christ's work that is the atoning work that actually accomplishes the satisfaction of the wrath of God.

It's the actual thing that saves us and makes us born again. It's Christ's work, it's not our work. And that's what I had to keep thinking about. So my faith is an instrument God uses, but my faith is not the work.

My faith is not the grounding or the root of my justification. It is Christ who is the root of my justification. And that made a huge difference. And then of course, Reformed theology came into the picture kind of right around this time, right after, kind of like mid or late teens.

And because of that, the understanding that Christ accomplishes salvation completely, that it's a decision, even predestines me to be a Christian. That also boosted my faith, as it should. This doctrine can be abused and used in all kinds of ways to make people actually doubt their salvation.

Like, am I one of the chosen, right? And there's examples actually even among the Puritans of having these problems, of like having to have all this work so we can prove that we have fruit, so we're saved.

But I don't think it's used that way in scripture. And I didn't think of it in those terms. I thought of it more as like, oh, good, okay. Even this idea that my decision factors into it, that this is also something that Christ is using for, like God's got this, God's behind this, it's not me.

And so that was it, that was it. That was what made the difference and gave me assurance that I was a believer, that my, and of course, knowing that I have the desires, fruit does play a part in this, like knowing that I desire the right things, seeing that there is a, sometimes it's really slow, but that there is an upward trajectory in my life of becoming more like Christ, of seeing things I didn't see, rooting out pride.

I may have a long way to go on that, but the direction is a good direction. Knowing that there's times when I can point to, since then, experiences, experience does factor into this somewhat, at least as another kind of, I guess, strand of evidence that just reinforces what I already know, but seeing the Lord provide, seeing, having those experiences at times with the Lord and sensing an assurance from Him, I don't think that these things are all necessarily the sufficient or, well, I don't think they're necessary.

We'll put it that way. Like, I think that ultimately it is just a faith in God. It is casting yourself completely on the merits of Christ and just looking to Him completely, but these other things do come with time and the fruit really does help.

Fruit, Sanctification, and the Difference Over Time

And so I think that's where fruit comes in, the works of righteousness, the desire to do the right thing, the conviction of sin, the not falling off the wagon. When, let's face it, in 2020 especially, I saw a lot of crazy things.

I still do, a lot of deconstruction, a lot of ex-evangelical stuff, and knowing that I would never in a million years do that because that is a complete rejection of the one I love, that is a rejection of Christ.

I mean, that gives me some assurance. I'm like His, I'm His son, I'm His kid. That's dad, I would never reject dad, right? So I'm speaking from the heart, I'm shooting from the hip a little bit here, but that's how I work through that issue.

And yes, there was a point in time when I stopped the striving. There was a point when I was so exhausted and I just said, you know what? I'm gonna trust Christ, not my decision to trust in Christ for salvation.

And that was the beginning. But my point is that assurance actually did grow with time. So yeah, I had assurance, but that assurance is even more now because of experiences and seeing the Lord work since then in my life and in especially the deep desires that I have.

So I hope that's helpful for those out there who might be struggling with assurance. There's a lot more that could be said, especially theologically. I think the word of God helps more than my own story, but because someone wanted to hear my story, I decided to just make a little episode talking about it.

So there you go, there's my story. But I do recommend if people are struggling with this, yeah, I would say 1 John, go to 1 John with the understanding that I've already given to you, that this isn't perfection.

Look at the tests in there for what kind of fruit a Christian has. If you're a new Christian, it may be a little more difficult because you haven't had a lot of time to grow fruit. The fruit may be little, but even if it's little, even if it's the tiniest little fruit, the fact that there's fruit is evidence.

Non-Christians don't have any fruit, not real fruit, not the fruit of the Spirit. They can't, they're dead in trespasses and sins. They can be nice to people in their lives, but as far as their own love for God, it's not there.

They're, you know, they can operate from some of the instincts that God gives, morally speaking, but they're not going to wanna worship, praise, devote their life to God. And yeah, and I think there is this great difference that is there, and it becomes evident the longer you walk with Christ, the longer you're around Christians, authentic, real, true Christians.

Remember, there's wheat and tares in the church, so there's people in the church that aren't Christians or people who are, but you're gonna notice, especially older, more mature Christians, a big difference in how they live.

I can think of people off the top of my head that I know it's real because I see them and I know, man, they were, look at what they used to be. Look how they are now and look how close they've gotten to God.

I mean, it's authentic, it's real. It's something that I can, I suppose, something that you see and you notice and it resonates with you more than something that I can quantify. But people who are actually walking with the Holy Spirit do exemplify these fruits.

And so I would just say, stick with it if you're a new believer. Trust in Christ and pray. Pray that he would give you a greater level of assurance if you don't have it. And show you if you are lacking in some area.

But don't create these expectations that you're gonna have 100 faith, 100 assurance and not sin anymore. And part of the trap, I guess, I fell into a little bit was there are people with these radical conversion stories.

That was another thing. And I would just mention this too in my personal testimony here. I remember going to so many youth events, especially with Word of Life and hearing these crazy stories of the guys who did drugs and were doing all kinds of sin.

And then they get saved and it's a radical conversion. And I remember thinking, man, I grew up in the church. I wish I had one of those testimonies. I wish I had done a bunch of sins so I could know that I'm saved.

Because look at the guy giving the testimony. He was deep into crime and now he's not. And clearly something's changed in his life, right? And I realize now how kind of foolish that was. And it probably wasn't a great witness to keep hammering these examples into the minds of youth.

Because there are people who, like myself, who grew up in the church, we still have sin. In fact, sometimes we have an attraction to sin that can be more almost tempting and intense because we haven't felt the burn yet.

We haven't run its course to the end to see how bad it can be for us. We just think it looks, maybe it looks cool. Like, I'd like to try that. That looks like it could be fun. And there's a different set of temptations too.

You have more pride, I think, or you're more susceptible to thinking that you're better than everyone if you grew up without those things, right? So there's just a different set of temptations and sins.

But people who grew up in the church also sin. And I think that it was a hard thing for me to think back to like, okay, I can't remember when I was six but what bad things was I doing at six? Man, it wasn't doing drugs.

It wasn't sleeping with other people. It wasn't murdering. It wasn't alcohol. It was, you know, none of the stuff that gets press in your sensational conversion story. So I realized that I didn't need that.

That's not, and probably a lot of the disciples didn't have that, right? They grew up in these conservative Jewish households and they're just living life. And, you know, that's kind of how they were.

And not everyone's gonna have that. Not everyone's Paul who's murdering Christians and then gets radically saved. Sometimes it's a process and there is this moment in time it happens, but sometimes leading up to it, it is something that the spirit does over a course of time until that moment of justification when you go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

And when it is gradual like that, and when you're so used to this moralistic environment, I think those are the people that struggle more with it, especially when they make professions at young ages. So know that that's normal.

If you're one of those people, that is a normal thing. I hear this story all the time and I see myself in it and stick with it, okay? Trust in Christ and then wait. Do the spiritual disciplines, you know, just walk with God like you would your wife or anyone else that you know.

Try to get to know that person by listening to what they have to say in the word and speaking to them through prayer. And then see what the Lord does. That's my advice. And go to sleep at night without, I know some, I guess I'm on dangerous ground here a little bit, but I think I'm comfortable enough to say this.

I think I'm, I think I, I think, cause I'm contradicting some people I respect, but I have heard, and I won't name them, but some people I respect who say that you need to basically suffer through the dark night of the soul, however long it takes you.

Okay, I'm okay.

Like maybe some people that's the thing, like you need to, but that was bad. That was really bad for me to hear because that was like an exhausting experience where I just, you know, I would get worse, right?

I would just pray like, Lord, give me assurance, give me assurance, give me assurance.

Over and over and over.

And like, Lord, I'll do anything. And Lord, I'll give this up, I'll give that up. I'll, you know, like trying to do everything I can. Let me read the Bible now for another hour. Okay, Lord, now what? Now, has anything changed?

I just read the Bible for an hour. That was not a good thing for me. I was setting my expectations that the Lord was just gonna like come through the clouds and show me what his will was and confirm that I was a child of his and all the rest.

Not the most healthy thing, honestly. I think for me, and I think this is gonna be true for most people, the best thing is to go be normal, live your life in a way that pleases God as much as you possibly can.

Yes, do devotional times. Yes, speak to God, but making it an obsession to find that experience also gets your eyes off God. Put your eyes on God, okay? If you need to go pray all night like Jesus did, that's fine, but do it for a night and then sleep in a boat, okay?

Get some sleep later. Don't kill yourself. What you want to do is get yourself to the point where you're not really looking at yourself. You're not looking at your experience. You're not just evaluating what's happening in your heart all the time.

You're really just focusing on God. You're thanking him for who he is. You're praising him for who he is. You're just, you're grateful that he gave you the light.

That he did give you.

And be confident that if you are in him, he is going to give you an assurance that you are his. And thank him that he does that kind of thing. And look for the fruit in time though, not with an obsessive kind of, you'll notice it without even really looking for it.

So I don't mean look for it in an obsessive way, but just be mindful that you're going to notice one day, like I don't want to sin in the way that I used to sin. And that's going to be an encouragement for you.

So I hope that helps.

That's my gut level story about how I came from a position of doubt to a position of assurance. More could be said, but any questions, put them in the comment section and I'll try to maybe follow up. And we could do another Bible study on this if you guys want.

But go check out the episode I did with Joel Webben on his book on 1 John. I think that could help you as well.

God bless.