Many followers of Jesus Christ look for the assurance of salvation in the wrong places. We tend to seek assurance of salvation in the things God is doing in our lives, in our spiritual growth, in the good works and in how much obedience to God’s Word is found in our lives.
While these thing can be evidence of salvation, they are not what is based upon. Rather, we should find the assurance of our salvation in the objective truth of God’s Word. We should have confident trust that we are saved based on the promises God has declared, not because of our subjective experiences.
How can you have assurance of salvation?
1 John 5:11–13
“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who hath the Son hath life; he who does not have the Son of God hath not life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Who is he which hath the Son? It is those who have believed and received Him (John 1:12).
If you have Jesus, you have life. Not temporary life, but eternal. God wants us to have assurance of our salvation. We should not live our Christian lives wondering and worrying each day whether or not we are truly saved. That is why the Bible makes the plan of salvation so clear. Believe in Jesus Christ. “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. Rom 10:9
Do you believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins? Do you trust Him alone for salvation? If your answer to these questions is “yes”, you are saved!
Assurance means freedom from doubt. By taking God’s Word to heart, you can have no doubt about the reality of your eternal salvation.
Jesus Himself assures those who believe in Him: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand”. John 10:28
Eternal life is just that… eternal. There is no one, not even yourself, who can take Christ’s God-given gift of salvation away from you. We hide God’s Word in our hearts so that we do not sin against Him, and this includes the sin of doubt. Take joy in what God’s Word is saying to you: instead of doubting, we can live with confidence!
We can have the assurance from Christ’s own Word that our salvation will never be in question. John 6:37
Our assurance of salvation is based on the perfect and complete salvation God has provided for us through Jesus Christ.