“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20)
But if you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to stand at the door of a person’s heart from the time they are old enough to be held accountable, until the moment they take their last breath here, pleading with them to call upon Him, to open that door, you are mistaken.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;” (Romans 1:28)
Few are chosen, nearly everyone dies in their sins, few find that strait gate, few answer His knockings.
This short letter though is not about the wicked who will remain wicked until their death, the ones who will spend their lives denying Him, with His wrath upon them, it is about those who have been hid in Christ and our thoughts on this matter in alignment with Romans 7:25.
“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Our eternal salvation is assured, we are hid in Christ, but that assurance, the knowledge and even acceptance of our assurance can at times escape us. We do not feel as if we are saved because of our flesh that serves the law of sin, actions, whether they be in word, deed or thoughts do not reflect one who is an heir of the Kingdom of heaven, a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
We do things we know we should not do; we say things that are unbecoming of one who will wear a robe of brilliant white, we entertain thoughts that should not have formulated in our minds in the first place. We repent, many times a day sometimes, and He is faithful and just to forgive us, yet that sense of unworthiness can lead to the question of “How can I truly be saved when I can clearly see that which is within me that does not reflect one who has been born-again?”
“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24)
“Did I truly answer His knocking, or have I only been deceiving myself all these years?”
The unquestionable knowledge that we are the righteousness of God in Christ is questioned, and our assurance slips away from us.
The battle of pride tells us not to look back on deeds done for His glory, deeds we know were done by the Holy Spirit through us, and with a willing heart for His glory. The heart that deceives us tells us it was not enough, that more could have, should have been done, that we are always going to be unworthy, that we never truly opened that door when he knocked, that we have never been profitable, that it is our old nature that we serve.
And our adversary is more than willing, happy in fact, to assist us in whatever way he can to get us to believe that we are one of the reprobates, only pretending, deceiving ourselves. That we do not serve out of a love for Him who first loved us, but because of the fear of hell, of eternal damnation.
This is not just a bump on the road to the strait gate we are on my friends, this is a pit, it is in all regards, in form, the valley of the shadow of death, and the death of our assurance of His promises to us is a painful way to live and die.
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:” (Job 19:25)
Doubts of our assurance, of His assurance towards us in the eternal promises, can lead to only one place, hopelessness, and if Satan cannot cause despair to come into your life because of the way this world is going, he will do so by having you question your assurance in the promises of the Word of God.
Rest in the promises.
