Assurance – Am I saved? – Part 1 – introduction & the mark of a Christian

February 11, 2011 Leave a comment

I am taking a short break of my notes on the book ‘The practice of godliness” to copy some notes of a study I am taking.

It is with some trepidation that I write this, for I am reminded that when we seek to share, what we share, must first leave an indelible impact on our own self.


A few words about assurance with special reference to the letter of 1 John

Part 1 –  introduction and the mark of a Christian.Assurance

…and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me…

(2 Timothy 1:10-12 ESV)

‘Assurance is the quiet joy and joyous cry that nothing can separate the believer from the love of God in Christ. Knowledge without assurance is a contradiction in terms, as faith without certainty would be spiritual torture. The Christian who believes that faith is a risk, a leap in the dark, a decision made against the odds, is of all men most miserable, for it is then himself, his life and his future which is at stake. Being suspended on a hairline of uncertainty between heaven and hell, life and destruction. Nor does faith, understood as a human decision, carry the needed assurance, for the assurance is then grounded merely in a human action.’

Assurance, The Zondervan Encyclopaedia of the bible, Volume 1, 2009.


I am lead to commence this study based on a few reasons.

The gripping read of the book of 1 John in the New Testament late last year (2010), where at the end, this famous last surviving apostle of Jesus Christ who died somewhere around 90 – 100 A.D. states

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

(1 John 5:13 ESV)


Further to this I have been around or spoken to Christians where this said issue can crop up in conversation. How do I know I’m saved?


It also seems needy to write this so that we can distinguish and make lines of definition as to the nature of a true Christian, as too often this issue is hazy and too often misunderstood.


A Christian is not somebody who merely has an affinity with a certain church or a certain denomination.

A Christian is not somebody who was merely baptized as a baby and for that matter perhaps baptized as an adult.

A Christian is not merely somebody who is a nice person.

A Christian is not somebody who merely “doesn’t mind Jesus”.

A Christian is not somebody who merely tries to follow the 10 commandments.

[Note where I say merely, I use this word to in some way show that those particular things are in fact signs of the real possibility that a true Christian is present, but they are not in themselves defining marks]


So what is a Christian, well I will give you the description throughout this work that the apostle of Jesus Christ gives throughout his letter and in addition I will say the following.


A Christian is a person, young or old who has come into contact with a reality of God as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ and has been so radically changed in their inner person that indeed ‘the old has passed away and the new has come’ [2 Corinthians 5:17]


Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
(2 Corinthians 5:17-19 ESV)


A Christian is somebody who has been enlightened by God to come to know that they are indeed a sinner – a continual breaker of God’s law – and been so changed by him that they now have turned from their sins and have placed their trust; they have laid their faith upon Jesus Christ and His work of reconciling them [bringing them back in good terms] with God.

That is a Christian, somebody who has traded their guilty stains for the perfection of Jesus Christ by placing their faith in him and his perfection and righteousness [rightness] so that they now stand before God ‘not guilty’, ever leaning and ever trusting on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for their sin.


A perfect person? Well not quite, but somebody whom when looked at over the course of their life is continually being worked upon by the Spirit of God, to look more and more like the character and person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes two steps backward, and one step forward, but overall there is evidence of great growth, and great change and greater and greater evidences of the fruits of the Spirit of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

(Galatians 5:22-24 ESV)


The God they once had no time for they love and esteem to be GREAT. The sin they once loved, they ever more grow increasingly hateful of it, ‘hating even the very garment stained by the flesh’ [Jude 1:23]
A Christian is a not simply transformed, but they are regenerated, they are as Jesus said to the Jewish Pharisee in John chapter 3 “born again”!!

P

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John 14 – answered prayer and sweet revelation

January 27, 2011 Leave a comment

After some time in prayer this evening after returning from seeing my good friend Johnny Ryland (this is the way we affectionately refer to our main library – he seems to only be much of a friend to many of us around exam time!!) Anyway I was asking the Lord to really help me grasp the Bible, to see more and more and indeed I read this passage much later on tonight and grasped so much more from one chapter of Scripture than I have in a long time.

I’m going through the gospel of John at the minute and tonight I read John chapter 14.

The gospel of John is the last canonical gospel written, scholars place it around 90 AD. It was written by possibly the youngest disciple of Jesus and the only one not to be killed for his faith, John, who was nicknamed by Jesus as a ‘Son of Thunder’ along with his brother James. (This may have something to do with their personality – well I mean they did once ask Jesus to basically blow up a town because the people there would not believe in Him – to which Jesus basically told them to calm down – it goes to show Jesus doesn’t call perfect people [indeed there are none] but he does call people and trains them and saves them to be more like him – John was probably like 80 years old when he wrote this – I’m sure he wasn’t asking God to blow up more towns like in his younger days!)

v.11-14

‘Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.’

Three things can be picked out of this next statement by Jesus

1.)

The followers of Christ are enabled by him to do the works he did. Now it is taken as consensus by many theologians that the ‘greater’ here does not simply refer to a greater quality of works, but rather that the amount and scope of our works will be greater. We can see this surely by the mushrooming nature of the expansion of the Church during the first three centuries AD, where it pervaded every corner of the Roman Empire, and even in our day where, as an example the church in China seems to be growing at a phenomenal rate.

2.)

These works are done by God, for God, through us. Let us not get caught up in thinking that the operation of these works has anything to do with our ability or prowess. We see straight away Jesus says ‘whatever you ASK in my name’. It would appear that we are to ASK for the grace of God to be poured out upon us to complete these works. It is all God, let us never take glory for ourselves, for it is not ours to claim.

3.)

The final thing I see here is something often overlooked. We see Jesus here saying to ask for the grace to be able to do these things and it will be given. It can be easy to take the Lord’s words here out of context and understand them to tell us that ‘oh well anything I want I just have to ask in Jesus name and its done! Wipee, blank cheque’.

That is not what he is saying here, there is a caveat, a condition. Yes he will do whatever we ask, but this is where we ask for the grace to be able to do works ‘that the Father may be glorified in the Son’


Oftentimes a promise is given in the Bible and people try to explain away why it doesn’t seem to always apply, and many times the explanation of the condition given, I never see it, but I do here! I see a clear condition here, yes he will give us what we ask of him, but it is when we ask to do God honouring works that will glorify the Father IN the son, that is why we ask IN the name of Jesus (c.f. verse. 14).

vs. 21 – 24

‘Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.’

An interesting description painted here by our Lord.

He marks those who are his followers and those who are not, and it is made clearer by the question the disciple asked.

He and the Father will reveal themselves more and more to those who keep his commandments (they keep his commandments because they love him – ever heard the phrases – ‘talk is cheap’ or ‘show me you love me’).

Why is that you will reveal yourself to us and not to others?  It is because they are in him, they love him, they follow him and then naturally they obey him. Just as a side bar, suffice it to say that Christians do not obey God out of their own strength, no man is able to, but only by the help of the Holy Spirit which He has given us, He makes us able!

Finally…

v. 30

‘…the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me’

I love this line! It evokes an image of the Lord standing tall and bold as the King of Kings he is and firmly declaring that not even Satan the old enemy, the old dragon has anything to do with him – “can’t touch this na, na, na, na!!”

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and also check out a few different bible reading plans I will upload now. Though they mostly start at January 1st you can make January 1st any day so why not start today?!

Be blessed, keep reading the Word of God and keep praying!

Cory

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Eternity awaits

December 19, 2010 Leave a comment

We Christians are debtors to all men at all times in all places, but we are so smug to the lostness of men. We’ve been “living in Laodicea”, lax, loose, lustful, and lazy. Why is there this criminal indifference to the lostness of men? Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living. The Bible parable says that while men slept, the enemy sowed tares among the wheat. A boy who rises at 4:30 to deliver papers is considered a go-getter, but to urge our young people to rise at 5:30 to pray is considered fanaticism. We must once again wear the harness of discipline. There is no other way.

Leonard Ravenhill

There’s one thing that matters in this life and it’s this, the death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ and mens’ response to it.

James Thompson

It often occurs to me how flimsily I take for granted that men are lost. Outside of the rescuing cross of Jesus Christ all men everywhere and at everytime are lost in their sin without hope in the God that bought them.

So then we who have this message – ought we not to take every last breath every last opportunity to share this phenomenal news. I use phenomenal – probably the best word I could think of – but even this 4 syllalble word fails to even hit the foothills of the mountain that is this great salvation of which we partake in.

I have had two close deaths this year, and it’s at these times that I see all the more the need and necessity to share this news that men and women might have a hope in God and a life with him both now and forever.

This life is temporal and in comparison to eternity matters for nothing, save this, that we honour God and spread the news of the increase of his Kingdom.

No we don’t all go off to the Andes, no we don’t all take part in street preaching – but we do all work somewhere, we do all live somewhere, we all have neighbours, we all have uni mates, school mates, work mates. At the end of the day we all know somebody who doesn’t know the God who created them.

P


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