The Journey: Is Where You Will Find Assurance 2-24-2020
By Dean Foster
February 24, 2020 
The Journey: is where you will find Assurance
13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13
"God will never ask you to go through something he hasn't already prepared you for," is a stumbling block idea the enemy throws at believers in different ways. You may have heard it said differently but it remains the same lie wherever he puts it.
Read the Bible, get to know Him and you'll see the sovereign God will most certainly allow life to overwhelm and become more than you can humanly handle on multiple occasions. Not to punish, confuse, or test you, but to draw you closer to Him. We need His help to learn and strengthen our trust in Him.
God allows you and me to be overtaken by circumstances and situations that push us beyond the limits of who we are. Life's events will push us to the edge where it seems there is no way out or back. God allows us to get out to that unbearable point before we come to ourselves and know that Jesus is still with us. Then we remember that He is the only way.
Welcome to the Journey.
I was almost five years old, which would make it early in the summer of '63 when this happened. My dad had a single axle trailer frame on which he was building a plywood box trailer to pull behind the car on future family camping trips. The particulars of which I was only slightly aware of at the time. As far as I knew it was me "helping" Dad build a big wagon out in the garage. It was in fact, the first time I remember being asked if I wanted to "help" him out in the garage.
That Saturday I was up in the almost finished plywood box of the trailer and Dad was standing outside next to it tightening bolts. I remember the box was big with sides as tall as I was so I was walking around in the smell of new, unpainted plywood, listening to the clicking sound of Dad's ratchet on the nuts and bolts. At almost five, I already felt the masculine heart God had put in me. Wearing a t-shirt, blue jean shorts, scuffed up shoes, out in the garage, sawdust, clicking hand tools, yeah, this was a man's world. I was into it! Then Dad stood up, looked in at me and said, "What did you do to your knees Dean?"
I looked down and saw blood slowly leaking down both legs from scraped up knees and started to whimper a little. Dad, being my dad, chuckled and said, "Nothing to cry about now! You didn't even know you were bleeding 'til I told you about it." Standing me up with a hand on my shoulder he looked at the injuries and said, "Better get in the house and have Mom patch you up." He helped me out of the trailer, pointed me at the house and went back to tightening bolts.
Failure, especially your first time out like that, is hard to take. My first time "helping" and I end up bleeding and being sent in to Mom. Dad wasn't angry or disappointed. Like any father, he didn't like to see his kids get hurt and didn't know what to do about it other than send me to Mom. I understand that today but at the time the tone of his "I took my eyes off of you and I shouldn't have" voice and his, "Oh great, look what he did now," voice sounded the same. I hadn't failed but thinking or feeling that you have fallen short can be dangerous.
In his first letter John is writing to help believers avoid being misled into failure by false teachings that threatened the Christian communities in Asia Minor. He was writing to refute false teachings that were confusing the gospel itself.
In the fifth chapter John says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."(1 John 5:13) There it is, so simple you could read right over it, assurance comes from believing in Jesus. The true Gospel: when you trust in his name, you can stop trying to earn heaven by some moral means or something you've saved up in some good deed account somewhere: you simply draw from the righteousness Jesus has put and keeps in place for you. "Not rocket science" as the saying goes, this isn't even "third grade math." The Gospel is simple to proclaim "Jesus takes my place" and assurance doesn't depend on how well or how much you have done. It depends simply on whether or not you believe the three words he said before dying on the cross; when he said, "It is finished." Just as the Word of God proclaims it!
Some Christians get caught up looking for assurance in a prayer they prayed two years, or five years ago on a specific date. John does not say, "I write these things to you who prayed the sinner's prayer." He writes to those who believe. The point is not the prayer you prayed but what you believe today about the Father and the Son.
Then as you are born of God you find you are given a new nature. And with that new nature comes a new desire. A new desire to please God and to share what you have found. Therefore, you do not continue to live as you did because God changes you. He changes you not by forcing rules upon you but by giving you a new heart. You no longer love dishonesty, hatefulness and prejudice. You know what they are and recognize them for the threat they are to the happiness of others and your own. Hence, you are able to avoid them and the snares they create.
Thus, assured that you are saved, even strengthened by a new nature does not mean you will no longer struggle with temptation to sin. You are enabled though; you are strong in the Lord to overcome the willful and defiant temptation to give up. You know the best way to reflect your love for Christ is not with your mouth; but with your Life. Don't show up to preach or teach on Sunday if you aren't sharing and showing what the Good News means to you during the week.
Your new nature is not demonstrated by never falling, because you will. Our nature is revealed by who we turn to when we fall. Conversion means a new direction and turning to the one who shows us the way.
Moms had different ways of fixing scrapes and getting the bleeding to stop back in the 60's without band aids that would just fall off. My mom got me "patched up" anyhow and then she said the best thing I ever heard as an almost five-year-old, "Better get out there now, your dad wants to finish that trailer today and he needs your help!"
This is the Journey.
