SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/28/2024 8:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-6 “The
Certainty of Christian Assurance”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 2:3-6
Message of the verses: “3 By this we know that
we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 The one who says,
"I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a
liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but
whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By
this we know that we are in Him: 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought
himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”
I did not get my evening Spiritual Diary done last
night and so I thought that I would do one from 1 John this morning in order to
finish up was what really the introduction to the verses listed above is.
The following comes from John MacArthur’s
commentary: “The witnesses of this
assurance entails the Holy Spirit’s working in believers’ conscience and
emotions so that they feel the joy of their forgiveness and long to be in God’s
presence, like the children with a beloved father.” (The verses that he is talking about come
from Romans 8:14-16, which were quoted on the last SD that I did on 1 John two
days ago.) “They sense how the Spirit
leads and directs them (1 Cor. 2:14-16; Gal. 5:16-18; 25; cf. Luke 24:44-45;
Eph. 1:17-19; 3:16-19; Col. 1:9), not through their own wisdom and discernment,
but through granting them the desire to live godly lives and obey the
Scripture.
“To be sure, the Bible clearly teaches that those who are
truly saved can never lose their salvation (cf. John 10:28).” “And I give eternal
life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My
hand.” “They have been permanently
sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13), and nothing can separate them from the
love of their Savior (Rom. 8:38-39). At
the same time, however, God’s Word also commands every professing Christian to
examine his or her life, to see if the salvation that is claimed is actually
authentic (2 Cor. 13:5). “Test
yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you
not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you — unless
indeed you fail the test?” “If salvation
is indeed genuine, there will be signs of the Spirit’s working in that person’s
life, both in attitude and behavior. The
Bible refers to these attitudes as the ‘fruit of the Spirit.’ Paul lists them in Galatians 5:22-23: ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law.’ Assurance
of salvation, in the subjective sense, comes by examining one’s life to see if
there is evidence of the Spirit’s working in one’s attitudes. Such spiritual dispositions manifest
themselves in corresponding acts of ‘love, joy. Peace,’ and so forth, in
submission to the commands of Scripture.
“John’s purpose in writing this
epistle is clearly stated in 5:13 ‘These things I have written to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have
eternal life.’ It is to give assurance
of salvation to those who might otherwise be led to doubt. So again in verses 3-6 of chapter 2, John
addresses manifest assurance—from the perspective of obedience, which
constitutes visible, objective evidence that someone is a Christian. That is a crucial element in John’s moral
test for believers, an aspect that he divides into three parts: the test stated, the test applied, and the
test exemplified.”
Lord willing I want to begin the
fairly long section “The Test Stated” in my evening SD for tonight.
9/28/2024 8:43
AM
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