Your Assurance of Salvation
Is it possible to know you have a new life through Christ and are headed for heaven? If so, how? God never intends for the assurance of your salvation to be a perpetual guessing game. You can know you’re saved. Unfortunately, you can lose your grip on the assurance of your salvation when you take your eyes off of Jesus and His promises and begin to look inward instead. An alarming number of people insist on good works as a requirement for salvation. This approach renders assurance impossible.
Discussion Questions
What does it mean to have the assurance of your salvation? How do you get that assurance?
What can you learn about God’s desire for your assurance from 1 John 5:13? What are the “these things” John is referring to? (Hint: look at the previous two verses, 1 John 5:11-12)
Attention: Theology Geek question. How do the major systems of Roman Catholic, Arminian and Reformed theology insist on works for the assurance of salvation? How do these systems of thought connect with earning, keeping or proving your salvation?
Personal introspection to determine if you are good enough to have really been saved is a hopeless exercise. Why? What is the only foundation for the assurance of your salvation? (Hint: See the next question)
The assurance of your salvation is based on one thing: the promises of God. What assurance of salvation do you find in the following verses: Romans 4:4-5, Titus 3:5, John 3:16, 5:24, 6:40, 6:47 and Ephesians 2:8-9?
How does having the assurance of your salvation motivate you to live your life for Jesus? How are believers defeated when they live uncertain about their right standing before God and unsure of their eternal destiny? Describe the assurance you have that you are a believer in Jesus.
Further Reading
When You Find and Follow Jesus
Becoming a Christian and living as one are two different things. God refers to one as justification and the other as sanctification. We might also understand these two distinctions as finding Jesus and following Jesus. Blur this distinction between salvation and...
Your Life with God
Salvation is often viewed as a singular “event” or moment in our lives. By God’s grace, we receive salvation by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus to save us. There is a sense in which this is absolutely true, from the moment of belief we are saved...
Your Growth Toward Maturity
You’re born into God’s family the moment you place your faith in Jesus for eternal life. You start as a spiritual baby. But it’s never God’s intention for you to remain a baby. You are to grow and thrive as a maturing believer in Jesus. But you never grow passively....
Your Old and New Natures
Have you ever felt unprepared? You’ve probably had a time in your life when you were not prepared at all for what was about to happen. As our flesh constantly fights to lead us further away from God, it’s easy for us to feel unprepared for life. But God prepares us by...
The Holy Spirit in Your Life
In the Bible, we read Jesus promising to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples after He is gone. As believers in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is also with us, living inside of us, just as Jesus promised. The question is, why did Jesus send the Holy Spirit to be with us?...
Confessing Your Sins
God’s redemptive plan for humanity involves the death of Jesus for the sins of everyone. But we enjoy God’s forgiveness only when we believe what Jesus did for us. Have you noticed, even Christians still sin? Confessing or admitting our daily sin keeps our...