What’s your personal assurance of salvation?

[Ascetic X]

Paul said to examine ourselves to test if we’re truly in the faith. Backsliders and hypocrites tend to have no deep self-awareness of personal sin.

But let’s say you suddenly realize your life has been mostly sinful, after responding sincerely to the gospel message, and acting briefly like a genuine believer, many years ago. You fear that you either lost your salvation, or you never received the new birth at all. Hell now seems possible as your eternal, inescapable destination.

When you start to doubt that you’re really a born again Christian, what do you do to confirm your salvation?

Do you think back on how authentic your earlier conversion seemed to be? Do you renew strenuous efforts to obey the commands of Jesus, not to earn salvation, but to demonstrate its validity in your soul? Do you quote to yourself a verse like Romans 10:9 or 1 John 4:15 to restore confidence?

 

[atpollard]

I start with this:

Romans 10:9-10 [ESV]
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Then ask myself:
Do I believe?
Do I confess?

Then I trust that GOD is not a liar … that HE is trustworthy to finish what He started.

Philippians 1:6 [ESV]
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

 

[Ascetic X]

I start with this:

Romans 10:9-10 [ESV]
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Then ask myself:
Do I believe?
Do I confess?

Then I trust that GOD is not a liar … that HE is trustworthy to finish what He started.

Philippians 1:6 [ESV]
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Your reply is wonderful and blesses me greatly. I think you’re correct. Assurance is simple and direct. No complex theology, no convoluted “lordship salvation vs. free grace” entanglements. Just plain scriptures that clearly illuminate the reality of inner regeneration, which is permanent, based on God’s explicit and reliable promises.