What gives you the assurance of your faith? Is it a feeling in your heart, is it the actions you perform, some words you repeated long ago and then soon after were baptized? “
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.” (1st John 5:2)
Can works performed in the name of the Almighty prove one’s salvation, or can those same works be accomplished by one whose heart is far from Him? Can a heart that believes itself to be saved by grace through faith be deceived by that same heart and its emotional responses? Can one read and study the Word of God and not be convicted by the Holy Spirit, not be moved to submit fully to the Sovereignty of the Almighty?
“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” (John 3:7)
How many of these questions just posed can be answered yes to? All of them, and sadly many who professed to be saved are not because of one or more of them.
My friends, my flesh is not saved, it does not desire the things of God but of the world, it has no love for the Lord Jesus Christ, it wants to be free to do whatever it wants to do. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” (Romans 7:18)
“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.” (Romans 7:25)
I have, as it were, two hearts, one loves the Savior beyond words I can express, the other is owned by my flesh, and truth be told, it wants nothing to do with Him. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9)
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5)
If you think you are in a battle with Satanic forces, according to the Scriptures you are correct, but if you will study diligently those same Scriptures and seek for the truths of the Word of God, if you will ask with your whole heart for the Holy Spirit to reveal them to you, you will see that the real battle is with you, you are the enemy you must fight against constantly.
There is, in the best way that I am blessed to describe it today, a part of you that is saved, that can completely and unquestionably rest assured in your salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is a part of you that will be disposed of, that will be cast away forever. That part is your enemy.
“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:25)
A part of our Lord, in a way that we will never fully understand, was tempted in the wilderness and in the garden, yet without sin. We will sin, and our assurance will be questioned by us, we will doubt, we will wonder how the Lord can continue to love us, to guide us, to use us for His glory. We fight in this battle every day, sometimes many times a day, and we rest assured in the promises because we know He who has promised is true and faithful.
Your mind knows these truths, your flesh hates you because of them, your heart loves without measure Him who died for you, your other heart despises His Sovereignty over you. We are in a sense in a cage with the door wide open, free to serve and free to rebel. We are resting in the promises in the middle of a war.
In this regard Satan has very little to do with this battle, he will assist your flesh whenever possible, but there is a part of you that is your greatest enemy. Your assurance is sure if you have believed in faith, rest in the battle in this truth.