True assurance

When life gets downright gritty, down to the basics, on what will you stand? If you have not been there already, a time will come that tests everything you claim to believe. It may tragedy, it may success beyond your wildest dreams. It may be fiery criticism, it may be the applause of thousands. And, in the depth of your heart you will need an unshakeable assurance. What will it be? Some trust their intellect. Some trust their morality. Some trust their money, others their social status.

When the prophet Jeremiah delivered his sermons of judgment to God’s people warning them that God was done with their unfaithfulness, that He was going to let the armies of Assyria come down to reduce their cities to rubble, they responded with impatience, insisting that it could never happen to Jerusalem because it was the city of God, His symbolic dwelling place on the earth. Jeremiah said, "Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 7:4, NIV) History tells us that he was right! The city was destroyed, the Temple was razed!

Our Christian hope, our true foundation, is Christ Jesus and the salvation provided by His Cross and secured by His Resurrection! It is not our church membership. It is not the good vibes we feel in our worship experience. It is not our ministry or our service to others. In our humanity we like to hold onto tangible tokens that help us to feel secure. “Look at my good works!” we say, just like the Jews of old who pointed the Temple in the center of the city! “I’m indispensable to the work of God,” we think, “so how could He allow bad things into my life?” If this is what we think when everything shakes, when circumstances come that strip away our illusions and/or pretensions, we are stunned, left hopeless and dismayed. But, if our hope is in Christ alone, we stand secure though all crumbles around us.

Here’s how Jesus taught this Truth: “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” (Matthew 7:24-28, NLT) Paul, a man with much of which to boast in terms of heritage and religion said that he tossed all that aside. In terms of assuring his relationship with God he said it had the same value as dung! And he writes, "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Galatians 6:14, NKJV)

Are you defined by the Love that Christ has for you?
When troubles come, when success beckons you sin in pride, are you holding only to the One who loves you?
That is true assurance.

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In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song!
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground;
Firm, through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.


In Christ Alone

Townsend
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