Blessed Assurance: Perhaps More Practical Than Magical

Observing the problem

I assume that all Christians want to have that “blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,” that we are promised that we can have if we simply “trust and obey.” However, for many, what it means to trust and obey as to obtain that assurance seems mystical. We imagine we have to commit spiritual gymnastics or discover some gnostic secret to tap into that peace that is beyond the human capacity to grasp. Many have tormented themselves over not having the same sort of peace that they see in their confident neighbors, and they wonder why this great gift seems reserved for everyone except for them.

Somewhere along the way, they come to understand, perhaps after hearing a sermon on the radical nature of grace, that our blessings cannot be earned, and so they are burdened with the guilt that the reason they have no peace is because they have strived so hard to have it. So, what then do they do? They try and become complacent; to sit back and just let the blessings flow. What happens? Nothing. So, striving does not work, and not striving does not work. How can there be any hope? What magical answer is eluding them?

Perhaps the answer is more practical and a bit duller than we often think. Perhaps grace is not simply this magical power that God sprinkles over us like invisible pixy dust. Perhaps grace comes in many ways: sometimes through the Spirit that resides in our hearts, sometimes through the witness of a miracle, and sometimes, perhaps from the more mundane—a conversation, a Scripture reading, a Sunday of rest.

When it comes to feeling secure in my walk with the Lord, it has occurred to me that I feel secure in the walk when I am actually walking. In other words, I feel I have a deep and meaningful relationship with God when I am intentionally being relational. When I am not praying, when I am not reading the word, when I am not speaking with my community about God, I do not really feel very close. Such is the nature of relationship. If I do not talk to my wife, if I do not spend time with her, if I am always ignoring her, I cannot expect to feel connected with her.

We could talk a lot about the various ways we can connect with God in order to find inner peace, but let’s simply focus on one, one that is practical, yet, for many tedious: reading the Bible. Reading the Bible is one sure way, perhaps the surest, to hear from God, but instead, we feel it a chore, and wish, no matter how many times before we have been disappointed, that the grace of peace would just fall from the sky and deep spirituality would simply form from thin air. That is not how it works. It comes from sitting at the Father’s feet and hearing His story. Can it be that simple? Can the peace that surpasses understanding come from such a common practice of sitting down with a Bible?

The Bible as a Story, not simply detached advice

In order to get a handle on just what the Scripture can provide, let us consider what it is.

When many students think about the Bible, they may think of stories, but seldom would they say the Bible is largely one big story. When many children are first exposed to the Bible, they encounter a story Bible in which many different events of the Scripture are condensed into one tale after the next with a tight moral application at the end of each. For children, this exposure is great, but if the thought that this is how the Bible is really presented to us continues on as the child matures into adulthood, his or her attitude of Scripture will be misplaced. If it is a collection of various ideas, it breaks down to being much like other religious texts: mere advice, perhaps couched in moral tales.

Certainly, the Bible does have a thorough collection of stories contained in sixty-six distinct books that can, in large part, stand each on its own as a complete work. However, this is not to deny that each book assumes the existence of others, and that together they are much greater in sum than in part. While the Bible is not always presented in a way that modern readers would like, it not being tightly knit chronologically, it still tells a very cogent story that runs the length and breadth of human history, from Creation to New Creation, from Eden to New Jerusalem. That the Scripture from time to time jumps back and forth in its story telling, sometimes retelling a history from a new angle, much like we see in the various gospels, should not lead us to the conclusion that it does not largely hold to a historical thread. To be clear, I am not speaking of some allegorical “scarlet thread” in which Christ can be found represented in various tales (not denying such references either). Instead, I am saying the Bible tells a historical account that is held in various smaller accounts, and this story gives us a clear and large vision that helps us navigate human identity and purpose.

As mature Christians, it is imperative that we learn to tell this story as a whole. This at first might seem more daunting than I intend. We do not have to recall every single event recorded in Scripture in order to give a broad overview of what has happened as God has continually worked for our redemption, but we should have a general idea from the exile of Adam, to the preservation of Noah and his race, to the election of Abraham, to the giving of the law to Moses, to the establishment of the line of David, to the coming, death, and resurrection of Christ, to the birth of the church through the outpouring of the Spirit, and on to the eventual return of Christ to establish in full His Kingdom of Earth as it is in Heaven.

It should not come as much of a surprise that we often study the Bible, not in whole, but in part. It is inevitable with a volume so large that our study be fragmented. Yet, this should not excuse us from taking time to reflect on how each of our studies relate to the whole. With all the topical study series in existence today, all the character studies, all the self-help studies as it relates to family, finance, and marriage, we have often assumed the Bible, not to be a whole, but a reference work. Not to throw the baby out with the bath water, I would encourage us to continue our various studies, but never at the expense of knowing the whole. Knowing the whole is to know our own story, the story we find ourselves in. With that story, we better locate where we are, who we are, whose we are, and a sense of peace in belonging, a grace that comes through simply hearing what is being said.

It is tempting to simply jump right in with walking through the story at this very moment, tracking the path from Adam to Noah, Noah to Abraham, Abraham to Moses, Moses to David, David to Christ, and Christ to the outpouring of the Spirit upon the church as we move on towards the Eschaton, where Christ will be all-in-all, but, before we do so, let us inquire of Scripture what it is that we will gain if we do make the effort to listen to the Father as He tells His story. We will explore the story in posts to come.

A faith with a mission

Going back for a moment to the idea of topical study, I must add a word of warning that will help us better understand our first point concerning why knowing the story matters. If we spend our time learning morally tight lessons from topical study, we might think Christianity merely a practice. We certainly practice religion as Christians, but for a greater end, as James tells us in his epistle (see 1:27), the application of religion is mission. This mission is deeply rooted in what God is doing in establishing us as a people. To not know this is to miss out on a proper vision of Christianity, which is the key to our peace. To know our mission, we need to know our trajectory, and this is only supplied by our story. How can we know where we are going if we do not know where we have been. Being able to see the path behind us helps us decide where the path lies ahead.

Story is important because it gives identity and purpose. We live in a world today where we are more and more inclined to feel as if we have no real center of being. I have not seen this for myself, or, if I have, it is only a vestige of a former world, but, I have been told by persons older than myself, and I have read in history books that, whether they were Christian or not, many in leadership over the Western world and in the early ages of America thought through a lens that was very much shaped, not perfectly so mind you, by a Judeo-Christian lens.  Today, we no longer assume such identity so easily. We wrestle with who we are. We are no longer Christian because of the culture around us. Belonging to a belief group comes more honestly today.

Without such center in thought, many people, especially young people, struggle with identity issues.

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Where does my help come from?

From a biblical perspective, not knowing our identity and purpose is dangerous. Proverbs 29:18 tells us, “Without vision, the people perish.” If we do not know where we are going, why we are going, or what it will be like when we get there, we will become swiftly discouraged in our mission, whatever that mission might be, perhaps giving up completely. Many religions are simply a practice, with little to no vision of what life means and where it is taking us.

God does not leave us without hope, hope in a future, hope rooted in where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.

But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. (II Peter 3:13)

Peter tells us that our future is clear, because of the manner in which it flows from God’s promises, many of which, at the time of his writing, had just come true in Christ. Peter is telling his reader that they can have assurance in God and a future in glory, because God has been faithful in His promises.

I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

Likewise, Paul says that our present is unlike our future, and, when looking to Romans 8 as a whole, we see that this hope is rooted in what Jesus has done in the past. Elsewhere Paul tells us that this hope runs deep, because hearing from God leads to receiving the Spirit:

In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13,14)

We must note here that there is a direct correlation between hearing and receiving the world of truth and the gospel of salvation that allows the Spirit to witness to our Spirit that we belong to God.

Conclusion

So, the question before us is this: Have I really allowed God to share with me His word of truth and the gospel of my salvation? Have I really come to grips with the fact that God’s grace appears in many ways, and one way it appears to us is in His giving the Scriptures to us? Have you really “heard,” the Word, which means, do you really know what it says? Have you allowed the story to penetrate your heart? Is it a vague, disjointed set of ideas and stories collected over time as we have listened to bits and pieces of sermons, or have we applied ourselves in the study of the Word, being aware of it promises and what they mean, how they unfold, and how they direct our lives?

If you are not an active student in hearing from God, you might be one of those person's struggling with peace, and the Christian answer found in Scripture is clear: Hear the Word and find peace. 

Yes, it is the Spirit that witnesses with our Spirit that we are children, but if we do not know the story of God’s redeeming us as His children, which is the story of Scripture, we are not giving the Spirit a lot to work with. But, if we read our story under His guidance, our story comes to life. As we sit at the feet of the Father, intentional in our relationship with Him, allowing Him to do as He wishes, which is to tell us His story, we find ourselves forgetting about our lack of peace, our lack of feeling disconnected, because, in reading His word in sincerity, we are already in relationship, not trying to discover such relationship, but finding ourselves already there.

Hope then is the assurance that our future in glory will be unlike our present life of suffering, because of what Christ has accomplished for us in the past through His death and resurrection, and this hope comes in knowing this past, present, and future as revealed through the story God is telling us in Scripture.

If we did not know the story, the story of God’s promised future of hope and the story of how He has assured this hope, this present suffering would be too much to bear and we would not have the hope to continue to live as His people. Without vision, the people perish, but, when we know that an unimaginable future in the presence of God awaits, we, like Paul, can declare that our present suffering cannot compare with our great hope.

It is really that practical. There is no magic. God just wants us to hear, and, in hearing, He will mold our hearts by the power of His Spirit, as the Spirit brings God’s words to life in us, just as the Spirit has always carried the Word of God to create and bring life. We should never then try to have the Spirit work without the Word. We should never divorce the two, because their is no division in God's way. He brings life by the power of the Holy Spirit through the work of the Word. We cannot just wait for the Spirit to magically bring peace. We must submit to His Spirit and His Word, and together, we will have peace.