Assurance

The real Christian, enjoying assurance of salvation, has holy boldness but he also has less of self-confidence and more modesty...He is less apt than others to be shaken in faith, but more apt than others to be moved with solemn warnings, and with God's frowns, and with the calamities of others. He has the firmest comfort, but the softest heart. Richer than others, he is the poorest of all in spirit: the tallest and strongest saint, but the least and tenderest child among them.

What is it that Jonathan Edwards knows about knowing Christ? I would much rather leave the messy task of sorting out the good fish from the bad to Christ. At the end of the day there will be those who, though they say they are, ain't, and those who don't know, who are. Assurance should never rely on any date written in your Bible or statements from another Christian. But assurance stems from a careful examination with fear and trembling of evidences of grace in our life.

Yet, too often, we give less thought to these matters than we do to doing the dishes or feeding the cat. I want to be a real Christian. I want to be moved by the word of God. To find that treasure in the field and then to sell all in my joy.

No, it is not owing to God, nor to any of his revelations, that true saints ever doubt of their state; his revelations are plain and clear, and his rules sufficient for men to determine their own condition by. But, for the most part, it is owing to their own sloth, and giving way to their sinful dispositions. Must God’s institutions and revelations be answerable for all the perplexities men bring on themselves, through their own negligence and unwatchfulness? It is wisely ordered that the saints should escape perplexity in no other way than that of great strictness, diligence, and maintaining the lively, laborious, and self-denying exercises of religion.