Daily Devotionals: Wil Pounds, Section D

Daily Devotional: Are You a Saint?

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Are You a Saint?

In His great priestly prayer Jesus was praying for His disciples, present and future. He said to His Father, “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:19).

Did Jesus mean that He wished to become holier? Was He praying for sinless perfection? Of course, not, that would have been impossible for the infinitely holy One to become holier. He was already perfectly holy.

Jesus was using the correct definition of the word saint. Jesus was setting Himself apart to the task of making atonement for our sins on the cross so we could become set apart for God. A saint is one who is “set apart” for God’s unique possession and purposes. The setting apart as a saint is something God does apart from human endeavor.

The person who believes on Jesus Christ is set apart when God reaches down in His grace and mercy through the person and work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates him spiritually and sets him apart for His own possession.

One of the great truths of the reformation is, “Every Christian is a saint, and every saint is a Christian.”

Every born again believer in Christ is set apart from the world system and no longer belongs to its way of life. The believer has a new principle, new nature, new kingdom, new master, new loyalties, new purpose and new agenda in life.

“All Christians are saints, and all saints must increasingly be saintly.” Because of this new principle in life, the saint will become progressively more and more like His Lord and Master Jesus Christ. The new nature will produce a new kind of life.

Moreover, because you are a “saint” you will continue to grow in your steadfast commitment to Christ. You will persevere in the Christian life. You will persevere because of the perseverance of God with His saints. You will be able to stand firm to the end because God is faithful to His saints to the end. Because He perseveres with us we must persevere. We must be faithful because He is faithful.

How is all this possible? How can we who are weak and feeble spiritually be saintly?

It is because you are “in Christ” and He is “in you.” Christ cannot dwell in someone who is not set apart to Him. The saint has been joined to Christ in one spiritual body so that what is true of Christ is also true of the saint.

We now live and walk and have our being in a whole new spiritual environment. The apostle Paul says Christ has “raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). That is what it means to be a saint. He has set us apart to be with Himself in His holy presence.

We have this vital union with Christ that is unchanging. It is the very essence of our salvation.

Apart from Christ our spiritual condition is absolutely hopeless. However, in Him our spiritual life is glorious to the extreme.

Our sainthood gets eternity into the picture. It changes our attitude toward our current circumstances in life.

God gives us grace and power each day to be the kind of people He wants us to be. There is no other means of living the life of a saint. The source of our new life is in the election of God the Father before the foundation of the world. Moreover, the fruit of this new life is the glorification as the full-grown child of God.

Are you enjoying your sainthood?

How is your practice as a saint of God?

From whence do you draw your strength to live like a saint?

How then shall we live since God has set us apart to Himself?

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: Commitment to a Holy Life

Message by Wil Pounds

Obedience.

It is a dirty word in our day. We are all like little children; no one wants to obey anyone else. The words “obedience” and “submission” are a constant reminder of our indwelling sin. But whether we like them or not, they get to the heart of our problem of living a holy life.

Jesus said, “If you love Me you will obey Me.” It is our responsibility to obey Him. We cannot obey Him unless we submit to His sovereignty. There can be no holiness in our lives if we do not obey Him. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him,” said Jesus in John 14:21.

Obedience is the road to holiness.

Over the years we have developed habitual patterns of disobedience. We have patterns of sin in our lives. Am I willing to give up these habits that keep me from being all that God wants me to be?

Every time we sin we make it easier to keep on sinning. We reinforce these patterns, or habits, until we make a commitment to make a new habit not to sin. Have you made it your aim, goal, passion, not to sin? Have you made it a commitment to live a holy life?

The only way to break old habits is to make a commitment to start forming new ones. God cannot do that for us. It is our responsibility.

In Romans 8:13 the apostle Paul brought out the contrast between a habitually dominated pattern of living according to the flesh, and an obligation to habitually, under the power of the Holy Spirit, be “putting to death the deeds of the body.”

The responsibility of the Christian is to yield to and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in putting to death or destroying the strength and vitality of sin as it tries to reign in our bodies.

The old venerable theologian John Owen observed, “Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness is the soul and substance of all false religion.” In fact, it is a pretty good description of legalism.

The only way we can put to death sin in our lives is by submission to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our inner being.

It is our responsibility to obey Him. “The Spirit alone is sufficient for this work,” said Owen. “He is the One who gives life and strength to our efforts.”

How do we break these old habits of sin? How do we destroy the powerful grip of sin?

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). It is in the heart that the changes must take place. “The heart is the center of the inner life of the person where all the spiritual forces and functions have their origin” (TDNT).

That is where the commitment to an obedient life must begin. If I love the Lord God I will obey Him. I will seek to please Him if I have settled the love of my life.

The world system seeks to squeeze us into its mold by the constant bombardment of temptations to indulge in our sinful nature.

Have you made a once-and-for-all commitment to the Lord to live a life that is pleasing to Him? That is where every true born again Christian must begin. “Lord Jesus I give you my life. I thank you for dying for me on the cross and giving me eternal life. I thank you for forgiving me of all my sins, and cleansing me in your precious blood. I thank you for the indwelling presence of Your Spirit. Lord, I give myself to You and I ask that You enable me to live a holy life.” Make a personal commitment to Christ today.

Commit every day to the Lord. Begin your day with a renewed commitment to live God’s kind of life. “Lord, I want to please You today in everything I do. I give You this day, come and live Your life in and through me.”

Keep your heart sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Spend some time in God’s Word so you will know what God’s will is for the Christian. Living the Christian life will not come automatically. It is your responsibility to love and obey your Master.

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: The Call of God to Salvation

Message by Wil Pounds

The Call of God to Salvation
To those who are called of God, the good news in Jesus Christ is the power of God. If you are called of God, you know it. It is a matter of pure experience between you and the risen Christ. The true believer can declare, “Now I know in whom I have believed.”

C. H. Spurgeon said, “Ah! What a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you but His hold of you! What a sweet fact that it is not how you grasp His hand, but His grasp of yours that saves you! Jesus Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” “But we preach Christ crucified… to those who are called, both to Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23a, 24).

“To those who are the called… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” On occasion Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

There is the general call through the preaching of the Gospel to all who will come and listen, but there is also an effectual call when the Holy Spirit speaks to the individuals and they respond by repenting of their sin and believe on Christ as their personal Savior.

The school bell rings at 8 a.m., and it is a general call for all students to be in their classroom ready to begin their studies. However, when the teacher says, “Wil, come with me. We are going to the principal’s office,” that is a special call.

When the apostle Paul said, “We preach Christ crucified…to those who are called,” it is always a special call. It is the sharp, hot arrow of God’s Word piercing into the heart bringing conviction of sin and saving faith in Jesus Christ.

The effectual call of God is when the Holy Spirit whispers your name and says, “Come to Me.” The word comes into the soul, and there is no resisting it. God speaks. Jesus said, “All that the Father has given to Me shall come.” That is the effectual call.

The believer is saved by the effectual grace of God. Saul, the persecutor of the early church, heard the effectual call of God saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul could go no further on his way, and a radical change took place in his heart.

Zaccheus saw Jesus coming down the road and climbed up into a tree so he could get a better view. As Jesus walked He looked up into the tree and called to Zaccheus, “Zaccheus, come down today. I must abide in your house.” Zaccheus heard his name called and he could not stay up the tree.

The effectual call of God comes as we listen to the gospel being preached, and there is the power of God drawing the person to repent and believe on Christ. It is the effectual call because those who hear it respond to God’s free grace and are saved.

The preaching of the cross is a thing of power. “I have felt it here, in this heart; I have the witness of the Spirit within and know it is a thing of might because it has conquered me; it has bowed me down,” wrote Spurgeon.

It is a thing of power that does it. It is the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Have you experienced it? I have. It is my prayer that you will respond to the good news that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross. Can you say in your heart, “Jesus died for me. I know the blood of Jesus has washed me of all my sins. God has saved me for all eternity by His cleansing blood.”

Christ to me is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

This is the response to the effectual call of God. “To the rest of you who are called, I need say nothing,” Spurgeon said. “The longer you live, the more deeply Christ taught you are, the more you live under the constant influence of the Holy Spirit, the more you will know the Gospel to be a thing of power, and the more also will you have understood it to be a thing of wisdom. My every blessing rest upon you; and may God come up with us in the evening.”

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: “But I Don’t Have Enough Faith”

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

“But I Don’t Have Enough Faith”

I often hear people say, “I am afraid I don’t know if I have enough faith.” How much faith do you need in order to be saved?

The Bible does not teach that you are justified because of your faith. Faith is not works.

Faith is nothing more than the instrument to receive our salvation. Nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are justified on account of our faith. The Scripture says that we are justified by faith or through faith. Faith is nothing but the the channel by which this righteousness of God in Christ becomes ours. It is not our faith that saves us.

What saves us is the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect saving work. It is the death of Christ upon Calvary’s Cross that saves us. It is God putting Christ’s righteousness to our account that saves. Faith is only the channel and the instrument by which His righteousness becomes mine (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:24). The righteousness that saves is entirely Christ’s. My faith is not my righteousness and I must never define or think of faith as righteousness. Faith is nothing but that which connects us to the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness.

The whole emphasis on salvation by faith is clearly on the object of our faith: Jesus Christ. Jesus saves! Faith does not save us. Jesus alone does that.

If we are saved at all it must be through faith in the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).

Spurgeon once said, “It does not take a strong faith to save you, just faith. The weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift.”

The object of our faith is the all-important thing (Acts 16:31). Our faith must be focused on Christ Jesus and His saving work on the cross. He died as our substitute. We must trust in Christ to save us.

The righteousness that God has graciously provided becomes ours through simple faith. Ponder over Romans 3:22, 24-25, 26, 28, 30 and observe the emphasis the apostle Paul is making in these verses. Faith will not earn your salvation. If it did then faith would be works and God would owe you something. Faith is essential because only those individuals who put their trust in Christ will be saved.

The apostle Paul wrote, “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe” (v. 22). Sinners are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (vv. 24-25a). God did it this way as a demonstration “that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (v. 26). You cannot boast if you are saved by grace through faith in Christ, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law” (v. 28). Moreover, “He will justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcised through faith” (v. 30).

If you have never done so, will you believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved today? “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: Born of God

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Born of God

How are individuals made alive spiritually?

Jesus said, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3 NET).

The Bible teaches us that we become a child of God only through the new birth. Those who believe on Jesus Christ become God’s children. “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

By whose authority do we become the children of God? “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right . . .” It is the authority of Jesus Christ. Those who believe on Him have the right to become the children of God.

It is clearly not a physical birth, but a spiritual birth that is in mind, and it is something that is received by the person who believes in Him (1 Pet. 1:23). The initiative in the new birth is with God.

Without Christ we are spiritually dead in trespasses and sin (Eph. 2:1-3). Every individual must be born again because the natural man is altogether void of spiritual life. We need divine life, and that is what God provides through the new birth.

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36, 16). He has it right now (1 John 5:13). Clearly the individual who believes on Him receives God’s kind of life (6:40). It is the teaching throughout the New Testament (Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 10:9-10).

The biblical doctrine of the new birth takes all the glory and initiative away from man and gives it all to God the Father. He alone is responsible for our salvation; therefore, He alone gets all the glory. He creates the new spiritual life within us and causes us to believe on Christ. God chooses to give us eternal life (1 Jn. 3:1; Eph. 1:5; Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23).

We become a child of God when God gives us His life. It is an act of God. We receive that life the moment we believe on Christ. It comes from God and is received only on the basis of God’s grace. Those who believe become God’s children. Only by receiving Christ do we gain the right to become a child of God.

How do we not become a child of God? There is absolutely nothing that man can do to contribute to his spiritual birth. This is made very clear in John 1:13, “who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” No amount of human activity, religious cultivation, or moral teaching can change the essential nature of man. Therefore, it is imperative that man’s deepest need is to be born again.

In the Jewish mind “blood” is equivalent to human life. Spiritual birth cannot come about as a result of any human process or achievement. Man is not by nature a child of God. We are by nature sinners. No human agency can achieve the new birth. All human effort is powerless and superficial in regard to spiritual life. There is nothing in our human nature or character that can bring about a spiritual birth.

“Born of the water and the Spirit” does not refer to baptism regeneration (John 3:5). From the context “water” here is referring to the water bag broken at physical birth of a baby. Water here is symbolic of a spiritual birth. From other passages of Scripture we learn that baptism is in no wise essential to salvation. It does not form one of the conditions which God requires the sinner to meet. If baptism were necessary then man would be saved by his works.

The Bible teaches we are saved by grace through faith in Christ and not of works. It is the free gift of God. “What must I do to be saved?” The Bible says “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31).

The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to bring about regeneration (1 Pet. 1:23). No sinner is born spiritually apart from the Word. The “children” are those who believe on Christ. Men are God’s sons only as they respond to what He does for them in Christ. They are born into God’s family when they receive His Word.

The new birth is an absolute miracle. All human initiative and effort is ruled out. Men are “born of God.” There is no other way to become a child of God. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within the person. It is life in Christ and is divine in origin. The whole emphasis in this verse and in John chapter three is the activity of the Spirit of God, not human effort, works or merits by demanding the sinner to be “born again.” He excludes any possibility of human effort in salvation.

The word “believing” and “receiving” refer to the same operation of the Holy Spirit when a person ceases trusting in his own human merits and trust in Christ Jesus alone for salvation.

Are you enjoying the things of God, spiritual things, which are discerned and enjoyed by spiritual regeneration? Are you enjoying the privileges of being a child of God? In order to have spiritual discernment we must be born again (1 Cor. 2:10, 14).

The Holy Spirit gives us a new spiritual nature. When He gives us this new nature we are “born again” (2 Pet. 1:4). It is an act of God.

Because of this new birth the individual is a changed person who loves the things he once hated, and hates the things he once loved. A radical change takes place in the heart of the believer. “Therefore if any man is Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new thing have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). The NET Bible reads, “So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away–look, what is new has come!”

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: Born Crucified, yet Alive in Christ

Message by Wil Pounds

Born Crucified, yet Alive in Christ

The Christian life is a daily putting off all that belonged to the unregenerate old self and constantly putting on all that belongs to the new life in Christ. The cross and the resurrection extend their power and influence over the believer’s entire life.

The Christian life is constantly producing new life. This new life in Christ through His Spirit must be daily replacing within the soul what our daily crucifixion of the flesh is taking away. This new life in Christ fills the emptiness created by self-denial with some new likeness of Christ. In place of the natural affection, there comes some new divine affection (Eph. 4:17-32).

“You are dead . . . . you are risen with Christ” (Col. 3:1, 6).

The flesh will never produce a strong spiritual life that pleases God and looks and smells like authentic Christianity. The flesh will always disgrace the Lord Jesus Christ no matter how you try to dress it up in legalism.

The Holy Spirit is busy making real in the believer’s life what is already true of him doctrinally.

The believer has not only died, but is to “die daily” with Christ as long as we live in this present life because we are in “an irreconcilable enmity” between the flesh and the spirit (Gal. 5:17). We have no option but to take up the cross daily in following Christ. The flesh can only reproduce itself. It holds no possibility of a divine life. This dying to self and sin is something we do daily.

Our life-long growth in Christ-likeness is a determination to deliver us to death for Christ’s sake all that is kin to our old life before we gave our lives to Christ. It is also a commitment to put on Christ daily.

It is each believer’s responsibility to submit to the work of the Holy Spirit in mortifying the flesh and therefore bring our body under the dominion of the cross of Christ.

Moreover, the Christian life is not just a life of crucifixion; it is also a new life in Christ Jesus.

“You are risen with Christ.” This is the second part of this essential doctrine of Christian living. Our progressive sanctification includes both “taking off” the old self and “putting on” the new. Since “you are risen with Christ” keep on “seeking those things which are above.”

Yes, we “die daily,” but we were also made a “new creation” in Christ and our inward person is being “renewed day by day.”

The apostle Paul wrote, “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

The daily spiritual growth of the Christian towards perfection lies always in these two opposite directions. The believer is always subjecting, repressing, and mortifying the natural man on the one hand, and nourishing, developing, and renewing the spiritual man on the other. It is not one or the other; it is both principles and activities working in conjunction with one another.

It is our responsibility to daily judge and mortify all that we find in our attitudes, behaviors and values that are in the flesh and contrary to authentic Christian living. Yes, there must be a daily denial to anything that is not Christ-like.

A negative process is never adequate to accomplish a positive goal. And no amount or kind of self-denial can make a person holier, or sinless. What is needed is the means of bringing him into more intimate fellowship with Christ. Every retreat from the life of the flesh must be followed by a deeper entering into the life of the Spirit. We take off the old man, and we put on the new man in Christ.

As we abide in Christ, we walk as our Lord walked.

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: Blessings out of Sufferings

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Blessings out of Sufferings

What is your response to suffering? There is no escape from intense pressures in this life, but it helps when we get God into the picture.

The apostle Peter wrote to a group of suffering Christians with words of encouragement. “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).

“After you have suffered for a little,” says Peter. The suffering is temporary, in contrast and comparison to the eternal glory that is in store for the believer.

Before God blesses us there come times of trouble, distress, grief and pain. We can rejoice knowing the suffering is for a short time, but out of the suffering comes blessings that cannot be had any other way.

“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Our suffering is temporary, but it produces in us character that will last thought out eternity.

God equips believers for His service through suffering. He strengthens character in the fires of pressure.

“After you have suffered for a little while,” indicates the blessings come only after we submit to the refiner’s fire. We cannot disregard the sufferings.

Who will bless us? “The God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ . . .” He is faithful and consistent in the way He treats us. He is the “God of all grace.” Everything He does will be consistent with His eternal glory. Whatever He begins in His grace will lead to His glory. What He begins He will see through to completion. One day He will say, “Come to Me you blood-bought sinners. Come unto My eternal glory.”

We have been called, not just to eternal glory, but God “called you to His eternal glory in Christ.” He called you and me, sinners saved by His manifold grace, to His eternal glory. He called us to that very glory and honor in which the LORD God invests Himself forever. Yes, we who have “sinned and come short of the glory of God” are called into His holy presence dressed in His robes of righteousness.

The promise is “in Christ,” and to His glory. Everything comes through Christ. He is the atmosphere or climate of the whole Christian life.

He gives us grace to meet every situation in life (Heb. 4:16). The standing invitation is “Come unto Me all you that are weary and heavy laden.” Come you who are persecuted for righteousness sake; come you who are weary, tired, hurting; come you who are suffering for the cause of Christ; come you who are ravaged by a terrible disease. He gives out of His infinite grace. God gives us His strength to meet the demands of life.

He is the God of all grace—quickening grace, pardoning grace, cleansing grace, believing grace, sustaining grace, sovereign grace. The God of all grace, manifold grace, has a storehouse that never runs out. It is infinite, boundless, limitless, amazing grace.

Out of that constant supply of saving and sanctifying grace God does a marvelous work in us. His goal is to “perfect” us. The word for “perfect” in the original means to equip, to adjust, and to fit together, “to put into order, to mend, to make whole.” It is also used for mending of torn fishing nets, and the “setting a broken bone.” Everything that happens in our Christian life is used to conform us to Christ. Whatever God has begun He will complete in the day of Christ. God will make us just like Christ. Shall God fail in His eternal purpose? Never. And He will not in your life or mine.

You cannot be perfected except by the refiner’s fire. God uses the rod to chastise His children. Nothing but the rod will remove the foolishness in our lives. The Holy Spirit uses these fires to remove every corruption within. How is God restoring your broken nets, and setting your brokenness?

God uses stress to set up, fix firmly, to establish and strengthen the believer. “Confirm,” or “establishment” is to make solid like granite. God tempers us in the hot fires of suffering. Sufferings make us steadfast. It secures and stabilizes us and makes us mature believers. Suffering has a way of focusing our eyes on Christ, and off of ourselves. Pressures in our lives force us to rest upon the Rock of Ages. Our hope is fixed upon His blood and His righteousness. We cannot be established on the solid foundation without suffering.

Peter also prays that the suffering will produce a solid foundation for spiritual growth. Suffering also strengthens us spiritually. We gain new strength by wrapping ourselves around the Lord. He gives us strength to bear up under incredible suffering. When we depend upon God’s grace our suffering will glorify God. The Christian learns to face life with the sense that God is all he really need. Watch the Christian who has God with him.

Moreover, God strengthens His people as they undergo suffering. He gives us grace and power in time of need. As we submit to Him, He gives us the grace we need for the moment.

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Daily Devotional: Blessed Assurance

Message by Wil Pounds

Blessed Assurance

God does not intend for His saved child to live the Christian life without the blessed assurance of eternal life.

The apostle Paul had a profound conviction that nothing will be able to separate the believer from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:31-39).

Jesus spoke of double assurance or security for the believer when He said to His disciples: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand . . . and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30).

We have “been born anew to a living hope” (1 Pet. 1:3-5). We are guarded by God’s power through faith for salvation. Because the new birth has taken place in our lives, we have the presence of the Holy Spirit within us (Rom. 8:23). He is called the “first fruits,” the initial promise and pledge of a greater harvest to follow. The Holy Spirit does a work in our lives producing His fruit that is characteristically different from our human nature. The Holy Spirit is evidence of assurance because “we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His own Spirit” (1 Jn. 4:13).

The ascension of Christ to heaven to be our advocate is another great assurance for the believer who has been saved by grace. Jesus “ever lives to make intercession on our behalf” (Rom. 8:34; 1 Jn. 2:2). He is our great God and “He is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through Him” (Heb. 7:25). Do you have an intimate love relationship with your Savior? Are you abiding in Him and He in you? Spend time with Him everyday. Learn to go into His presence throughout the day and make yourself available to Him all day long.

God’s sovereignty gives assurance to the sinner saved by grace that “all that the Father gives Me will come to Me; and him who comes to Me I will not cast out” (Jn. 6:37). Have you taken these words of Jesus to heart and believed on Him alone for your salvation? God’s eternal purpose of salvation is such that He will accept and forgive all who trust Him for salvation.

Have you taken John 3:16 seriously? “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Every person who hears His voice and follows Him will never perish or can ever be snatched out of His hand. And they can never fall out of His hands because Christ has His hands securely around the believer and God the Father has His hands around His Son! “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all” (Jn. 10:29). How big is you God? Is He as big as Jesus claimed His Father to be? A God that big can provide eternal assurance for the weakest believer who is acutely aware of his sins and weaknesses. Have you confessed your need for Him to save you and keep you saved? Have you asked Him to save you? Are you trusting in Him alone for salvation?

If you are trusting in your good works to save you, then you should be filled with anxiety regarding your salvation. How can you ever have assurance that you have done enough good works, or are good enough, or perfect enough to be saved? Such presumptive pride should cause you to tremble before the Lord God (Matt. 7:21-23; Heb. 3:12).

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (Eph. 2:8-9). Will you now put your faith and trust in the finished and all-sufficient work of Jesus Christ to save you for all eternity? When you do you can find eternal security. “He who begin a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

Selah!

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