A False Assurance of Faith

Last night at church, the message resonated with me about the importance of being in church and how the enemy will twist scripture to justify our fleshly nature. Salvation comes through a relationship with Jesus, but if you’re never amongst a body of believers, how can you maintain that relationship? How can you grow in your faith if you’re never hearing the Word? Suddenly, you have less desire to pray, to read the bible, and then before you know it, you have fallen from grace. The bible says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

There are so many times that this has happened in my life. I was hell-bound and didn’t even know it because I had a false assurance of faith. My Baptist upbringing had me clinging to this false hope that when I was saved at 12 years old, I was always going to be saved. Thankfully, God opened my eyes. If I hadn’t studied the Word for myself, I wouldn’t have questioned this “once saved, always saved” philosophy that was so engrained in my upbringing, and I wouldn’t have taken the question to my Pastor for further guidance. Don’t get me wrong, there are those who believe in that philosophy that have never tested it. They have always strived for righteousness and kept a relationship with God, but I know for me, I fell away. It wasn’t even once. It was all throughout my life.

Why did I fall away? Because I never grew my faith. I never built the foundation needed to sustain my salvation. I grew up in church. I had glimpses of the love of God. I had even felt God’s presence, yet I was one of the people that said, “Oh, God knows my heart,” as if that was an excuse to stay in sin. Well, the bible says the heart is deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). It’s only through the help of the Holy Spirit that our hearts can be truly changed.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” When you truly accept Christ as Lord and Savior, you don’t want to continue those same sinful behaviors. I’m not saying the desire will go away, at least not overnight, but the Holy Spirit will help you. For me, I notice the closer I get to God, the less I desire my old ways. The desire for drinking is completely gone. I used to enjoy gambling immensely, yet the desire to go to the casino is now gone. This is not to say that I do not still undergo temptation. We all do because the devil knows our vices. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), but the key is that we can’t stay in that place. We must repent and keep seeking Him.

We can’t use scriptures of God’s love and mercy as an excuse to stay in sin. Romans 6:1-7 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.”

I’ve made up my mind that I’m not going backward. There’s nothing this world can offer me that is greater than the love of Jesus. It’s like the old song says, “Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.” He died on the cross so we can have a chance of salvation. We need to be assured in our faith and salvation, and that comes through denying ourselves daily, taking up our crosses, and following Him.