Here’s the second chapter in my upcoming book, You Are Saved: The Christian’s Assurance!
You can read the intro free and unlocked here, and chapter one here.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
- Fanny Crosby, “Blessed Assurance”
I’ve always had this strange fear that I’m going to show up somewhere and be told I’m not supposed to be there.
For example, every single time I travel to guest preach at a church, I have a moment of mild panic as I think, “Wait, am I sure? What if I show up and they had planned on having someone else speak? Do I have the right congregation? And is this the right Sunday?”
It gets a little ridiculous, I know. Worst case scenario is that I tell them I got things mixed up, I stay for worship as someone else speaks, and I go home.
But for some reason, that fear of being out of place, wondering if I’m really where I’m supposed to be, is a constant.
There’s one place I’ve never had that feeling, though. Any time I go to my Mom and Dad’s house, it doesn’t matter if I show up at the wrong time or on the wrong day. There’s no awkwardness, because I know that’s somewhere I belong.
This is how our assurance works when we truly understand God as our Father. A lack of assurance makes us feel like impostors in the pews, wondering if we belong before God and among all the Christians around us. But true assurance makes us feel at home with our God at all times.
It works this way because that’s how He designed it. He did not go through everything it cost Him to offer us salvation, only for us to be limited to thinking we maybe-kinda-sorta might be saved. But don’t just take my word for it. This is an idea that is found throughout Scripture.