Recently I had a disturbing dream. In the dream I was confronted by some man opposed to God, who claimed to have my soul in his possession. He pointed to his forehead and then to mine and said, "You have it too - the mark. You are mine!" And then I awoke.
Needless to say it was a bit unsettling. Whether this was some infiltration of my dreams by Satan, or just my own lingering fleshly doubts I cannot say, and I am fairly certain that it really doesn't matter; There is a doubt assailing me and I have to deal with it. Do I run from it? Try to put it out of my mind? Just hope that by neglect it will fade into the background and disappear? No. That won't do.
First of all, I do not believe God wants me for a minute to live with a cancerous doubt about my salvation. In Hebrews 12:11 we read:
11And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (bold added)
Secondly, these types of lies by the enemy only gain power by our ignoring them; they loose power by our confronting them with the Word of God. The lie that was spoken, essentially provokes two questions - "How do I know I belong to Christ?" and "How do I know I am secure in Christ?" My redress to these questions from God's Word comes from John 6. Actually, two of the verses (vs. 37 & 40) are already plastered on the top banner of my weblog. Additionally, I include verses 39 and 44. Here they are in total:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
How do I know I belong to Christ?
I know I belong to Christ because I have come to Christ, and I have come to Christ because I was given to him by the Father. Verses 37 and 44 make this an inescapable conclusion. In verse 37, we find that only those the Father gives to Christ will come to him. In verse 44, we are told only those can come to Christ whom the Father draws to him. In other words, my coming to Christ means the Father has both drawn me and given me to him. It was not an accident. It was not luck. And I could not have come to Christ any other way. As an aside, these verses are often used to support one of the tenants of Calvinism. And I think they do make a persuasive argument for "Divine Election." But that is not my point here. I am simply stating that these verses assure me that I belong to Christ - the fact that I came to Christ means I was drawn, and that I now belong to him.
How do I know I am secure in Christ?
I am secure in Christ because (a) in verse 37 I have the promise of Christ that "whoever comes to me I will never cast out." Also, (b) verse 39 assures me, it is the Father's will that Christ will "lose nothing" of all that the Father has given him. Additionally, (c) verse 40 tells me it is the Father's will that everyone who believes in the Son will have eternal life. And (d) in verses 39, 40 and 44, Jesus assures me that he will raise me up into eternal fellowship with him on the last day (I think the fact he repeats this promise three times in the eight verses from 37 to 44 means that we can bank on it!).
Additionally, I want to mention 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 4:6.
(4) In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the
unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the
glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
(6) For God, who said, “Let light shine out
of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Pastor John Piper makes a pursuasive argument from these two verses that (a) we would not have seen the glory of God in Christ without God's directive - "Let light shine" in our hearts, and (b) it is the unbeliever's mind who is blinded to seeing that glory. Since we have seen the glory of God in Christ, we can know we are no longer unbelievers. John says,
He [God] causes the human heart to see the truth and beauty and worth of
Christ—the glory of Christ. And when we see him for who he really is,
we receive him for who he is. And to as many as received him he gave
power to become the children of God (John 1:12). That’s what we want
for our children—at six or sixteen or twenty-six—and for our parents
and our spouses and our neighbors and colleagues and our friends at
school. We want the light to shine in their hearts so they see and
receive Christ. We want them to be born again.
My battle with doubt a few days ago was all too real. It hit me like a Mac Truck. But God used it to strengthen my faith in him. The enemy knows the lingering insecurity that took root so many years ago in a drug-induced psychotic state. But, if I believed his lie I would be putting my faith in my ability rather than in God's (i.e, "It's up to you, and you can't do it"). The truth is it's not up to me and that's good news, because it's up to God and he can and has done it for me! And my faith in Christ is the evidence of that.