How much faith is required for assurance? | askTheocast.org

Hi, this is Jimmy, and on today's episode of Ask Theocast, I'm going to seek to tackle the question from Robert, how much faith is required for assurance? It's a great question, and we get similar questions like it all the time.

Christ Draws Sinners and Raises Them on the Last Day

And if I may, I'm going to point you to a verse from the gospel of John, chapter six, verse 44, where Jesus says this, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

You know, the question of assurance is a difficult one. Like I said, it's one that we receive all of the time, and the common thread that I see in that question is that even when people ask it, they're looking for some sort of self-validation.

Faith Is a Gift, Not Self-Validation

And something that I want to remind us all of is just the fact of scripture, the truths of scripture, what we see time and time again, is that even faith itself is a gift. You know, a lot of times we think that God does his part and then he kind of throws the baton to us and now it's our turn to do our part, and if we do it incorrectly or wrongly or not enough, then God is going to abandon us.

And so as we think about faith, something that I want to point us to is that we are not saved by the quality of our faith. That is, we are never saved by how good we believe or if we believe enough, but rather, as we at Theocast, we like to say, how much faith is required for it to be saving faith?

Any Faith Saves Because Christ and the Spirit Give It

Well, and the answer to that is, well, any faith, any faith. And the reason being this, as Jesus told us in John 6, faith is a gift. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is the one that draws us to the Father.

And then Jesus promises in that same verse that he will raise us up on the last day. You know, it's a difficult thing for us to trust in, but time and time again, something that I remind our church of is this truth, that a lot of times our greatest battle in the Christian life is not to do more and be better, but rather, sometimes the greatest battle in the Christian life is to trust and rest in the gracious promises of Jesus Christ in the gospel.

Assurance Comes from the Object of Faith, Not Its Quality

And so to answer your question, Robert, how much faith is required for assurance? Well, any faith, because that faith is a gift by the Spirit in the first place. And now you're probably going to ask some more questions and I can even hear the alarm bells going off in your brain of, well, how do I know that I have faith?

Well, let me just point you to this truth, that the struggle that you're probably having internally, the struggle, the doubts and the fears, listen to me. That is a Romans 7 reality. What you're feeling is what Paul felt and what we all feel, that we do the things that we don't want to do and that which we don't want to do, we end up doing.

But let me point you from Romans 7 to Romans 8, verse 1, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And right before that, what does Paul say? Who will deliver us from this wretched body?

Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, Robert, what I want to point you to is not the quality of your faith. I want to point you to the object of your faith, which is Jesus Christ. That is what is going to save you.

And that is who is going to raise you up on the last day. If you want to hear more about this, we invite you to check out our podcast at theocast .org and there you'll be able to find additional resources as well.

Thanks for the question. We hope this has been beneficial to you.

Peace.