Tag Archives: grace

Growing in Assurance of Faith

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I have recently finished reading Joel Beeke’s fantastic little book titled “Knowing and Growing in Assurance of Faith.”  The book has been a tremendous blessing to me, and I cannot recommend it enough.  If you’ve ever wondered if you are genuinely a Christian, or if the doubts and struggles you’re facing seem overwhelming, this book offers treasures from the Scriptures and the Puritans on resting in and trusting God’s grace through Jesus Christ.

Just before the conclusion of the book, Beeke addresses some questions that he often hears, and I thought I would share the first question and his response as encouragement to you.

Question: I cannot deny that I am a believer, but what should I do when I don’t feel close to God and don’t feel very assured that I am saved?

Be persuaded that God wants you to find assurance by resting in Christ by faith; He does not want you to be forever searching for assurance like a hamster on a hamster wheel. Here are eleven suggestions that may assist you:

  1. Pray to God that He will grant you the light of His Spirit and show you that you belong to God and are saved.
  2. Read some of the promises of Scripture – particularly those, but not only those, that have been precious to you in the past – and rest your soul upon them… Pray for faith to believe that all the promises in Scripture belong to you, including those promises that have not been made powerfully sweet in your past.
  3. Flee to the basics of the gospel that Jesus Christ came to save sinners just like you, and all the precious truths that accompany the gospel.  Meditate on these grand truths, such as the stability of God’s enteral election, God’s constant care over you, your union with  Christ through His atonement, and Christ’s continual and effectual intercession over you. And then rest in Christ by faith.
  4. In dependency on the Spirit, examine yourself by some basic inward evidences of grace, such as: Have I learned to mourn over sin? Do I know what it means to truly hunger and thirst after Christ’s righteousness? If you cannot deny that these and other similar marks of grace are your portion, then conclude that you must be a child of God since neither the devil nor yourself can teach you to experience these things in truth; it must be the Holy Spirit working them in you.
  5. As the Spirit to bear witness with your conscience through the Word that you are indeed a true believer.
  6. Use the means of grace diligently, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer.
  7. Resolve to turn from your ungodly belief, to flee all lusts of the eyes and of the flesh and all worldliness and known sin, and to run the race set before you by laying aside sin and looking to Jesus.
  8. Remember that your identity is found in Christ, by reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive to Him.
  9. Consider the solemnity of what the Puritans called ‘the four last things’: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Live more for eternity than for time.
  10. Be comforted by God’s faithful track record to you for years and decades.
  11. Pray again that the Lord will bless all the above efforts to regain the stability of your personal assurance of salvation.

 

Beeke, Joel R. Knowing and Growing in Assurance of Faith (Christian Focus Publications, 2017) Pg 177-178.

Prayer Changes Things

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“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
(James 5:16)

In all the time I’ve served as a Pastor, I have never heard or experienced such a rejection of prayer as what we hear today in our culture.  With every natural disaster or act of terror and violence (and there have been many), when people offer their prayers, the hurting world more and more lashes out with mocking and derision.

There is a part of me that understands the frustration might come when one hears this.   If I were hurting and someone were to say to me, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” but then they don’t pray, or their life is such that everything they say and do contradicts a life of prayer, then I would know that they are just spouting empty words to make themselves feel better and quickly get out of the conversation.  How many times have we heard, or worse, told someone ourselves, “I’ll be praying for you,” but then never a prayer is uttered, and no further thoughts are expressed?  We have, by our own prayerlessness and lack of sincerity, given a poor example to the world of the power of prayer.

But what is most astonishing is the boldness of some today in their outright denial of the effectiveness of prayer.  Most notably, in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, FL, in which 17 students and teachers were gunned down, when our President offered his prayers and condolences for those who were mourning, the “rock-star” astrophysicist and agnostic, Neil deGrasse Tyson, replied, “Evidence collected over many years, obtained from many locations, indicates that the power of prayer is insufficient to stop bullets from killing school children.”

For starters, as a scientist, when Tyson says he has collected evidence, I wonder what that evidence might be. Is it the fact that bad things continue to happen even when people are praying?  That does not necessarily disprove the power of prayer. It may just mean that we don’t know how the prayer has been, or will be answered.

Of course, one shouldn’t expect someone who denies the knowledge of a real and personal God to uphold the power of prayer as a means of communing with that God and knowing the transforming power of God’s grace.  As intellectual as Tyson is, he is blinded by the veil of sin in this world (2 Cor. 3:14),  but ever the ultracrepidarian, he boasts of that of which he cannot know.

Still, as Christians, those who know and love God, and have been commanded to pray, this current cultural resistance to prayer should serve as a reminder to continue praying, but to pray with confidence in the one who hears our prayers.

Prayer does change things

Contrary to Tyson’s bold declaration, prayer does change things, and there is an abundance of evidence. R.C. Sproul, in his book, Does Prayer Change Things? noted the following evidences in Scripture:

  • By prayer, Esau’s heart was changed toward Jacob, so that they met in a friendly, rather than hostile, manner (Gen 32).
  • By the prayer of Moses, God brought the plagues upon Egypt and then removed them again (Ex 7-11).
  • By prayer, Joshua made the sun stand still (Josh 10).
  • By prayer, Elijah held back the rains for three and a half years. Then by prayer, he caused it to rain again (1 Kings 17-18).

I could go on, but there are also the prayers that have been answered in our own lives.  How often have we prayed and found that God has delivered?  Was this evidence taken in to consideration?  How many times has prayer stayed the hand of an angry father, or a desperate man contemplating crime?  Those stories we may never hear, but they are still answered prayers.  Prayer does change things!

More importantly, prayer changes us.  When we pray, the purpose of our prayer is not so much to see the world around us change, but that God might change the way we see the world around us.  Prayer teaches us to look not to wisdom and influence of man for our peace and security, but to trust in the Lord alone.  Prayer reorients our perspective; we may not know why this is happening, or what it all means, but we can know the Sovereign Lord who reigns over all things, and know that He is good, and He is able to work in all things for the good of those who love him.  We may not know the how, we may not understand the why, but we come to know the One who is at the center of all things, who hold all things together, and who has shown His great love for us in Christ our Lord.

So let us recommit ourselves to prayer.  In the face of overwhelming grief and tragedy, may we pray that God would give us the grace to comfort those who mourn, and to weep with them in their sorrow.  And when we say we will pray, let us pray.  Don’t put it off until you get home, pray right then and there.

And let us pray that God would give us wisdom to heal, not the symptoms, but the cause of the sickness in our culture.  No new legislation, no amount of community organizing, will curb the violence and division in our world today. Those are merely the painful symptoms of a systemic problem. The underlying cause is a radical brokenness within our souls that come from sinful rebellion and rejection of God. The only cure, the only hope that we have is the salvation that has been secured for us in Jesus Christ. May we, through prayer, have the wisdom and boldness to share the Gospel freely, and may God heal our land.

SDG