We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:11 (NIV)
Some folks face extreme difficulties in this whole matter of assurance. You struggle with many doubts. There is an instinct in you to doubt. Satan is constantly causing you to question your faith, and in large measure he has been successful.
The answer to the weakness of your faith is the strength of your Savior. Faith is a hand held up to Christ for help, but it is Christ’s hand that holds yours, not your hand that holds His.
When you doubt your faith, what are you doubting? You are looking at your faith. Faith does not trust in its own hearing, serving, feeding, praising, praying, and obeying. Faith rests in Christ, whom we hear and serve and praise and obey, on whom we feed, and to whom we pray.
Christian faith is never focused on itself. Faith looks to Christ, and in looking to Him, it looks away from itself. Paul does not say, “We rejoice in our faith.” None of us is going to be able to do that. Our faith isn’t good enough. Paul says, “We rejoice in God through whom we have received reconciliation.”
Scottish professor Donald Macleod says in his article, Faith as Assurance, “The worst thing Satan can do is convince you that you are a sinner, that all your attempts at Christianity are completely useless, that you are an utter failure, and that you have no basis whatsoever for hope before God. But then you are precisely the person for whom Jesus Christ came into the world!”
What doubts are undermining your faith today? How can you answer them?
