ASSURANCE OF ETERNAL LIFE

Some people are very opposed to the idea of assurance of eternal life. Have you ever wondered why this is? After all, most people want assurance in life. They want to know whether a friend will be faithful. They want to know how much money a project will take. Yet when it comes to religion I have found many people very wary of assurance of eternal life and God's favour towards them. As I have researched this, I have found that there are a couple of main reasons why people are hesitant to boast in assurance of eternal life.

Teaching

Some people have been taught that they shouldn't know. When they are taught this from a very young age people don't even realise that they should want assurance--that God wants them to have assurance. To even think about having assurance makes them feel guilty, like they have desired something against the will of God.

Arrogance

Since most people erroneously believe that religion is about what one must do for God, to boast in assurance of eternal life is to be arrogant about the quality of their life. Their religion gives them a list of things to do that will hopefully make them more acceptable to God.

Solution

So what is the answer to this matter? I see a number of things that are important in this matter.

The fact is that we as human beings really enjoy being around truly humble people. This is not referring to people who continually put themselves down just to get attention and encouragement from others in hopes that people will say good things about them. This is referring to people who are simply honest about their failures and mistakes, not denying them nor boasting in them but humbly accepting them. The only way this can be done is to realise that because of these failures and mistakes we deserve eternal punishment. No amount of "good works" can erase the bad marks left by these failures. Yet at the same time realising that God has determined not to hold our failures against us. This assurance can be ours if we admit how bad our failures really are and the consequences that they deserve and then have a full assurance of God's love in the midst of that failure. This will not only bring us deliverance from the emotional depression of our failure but also the failure itself. This is, in essence, genuine repentance. It is the right balance that God desires for our lives.

The problem is, where will we find the assurance that God will not hold our failures against us? This assurance of eternal life begins with God's promise and a person taking God at his word; it continues with living to the best of our knowledge in the way God wants us. Romans 5:3-4 states,

And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

This word, "hope", is not used in the sense of I hope something will happen, but speaks of an assurance of what will be in the future. True faith is lived out in our lives. If it is not, we will lack assurance. However if we are trying to earn God's salvation--trying to make ourselves acceptable to God by what we do--we will not have assurance because we are not coming to God as he asks us to. We need to come to him admitting that we fail to meet up to his standard of perfection and that because of that failure we deserve eternal punishment and separation from God.

History shows us again and again God's judgment on mankind. Disease, poverty, wars, anger, jealousy are all examples of God's judgment on mankind. The books of three major religions acknowledge that if God were to judge people as they deserved he would not allow a single person to remain on the face of the earth. We know that in Noah's flood, God actually destroyed all but eight righteous people. So what is the answer? First we must realise that we are not accepted by how good we are. The Holy Bible says,

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10)

Our Responsibility

This repentance or "right balance" or confession and trust, whatever we want to call it, requires that we know that we will not be judged for our mistakes and failures. How will we know that? First, we need to admit and truly believe that we are not accepted by God according to our good deeds that we used to believe covered our bad deeds. No amount of good deeds will cover the bad deeds. God has decreed that our bad deeds deserve eternal separation from God and his standard requires that we are perfect.

Second, we must believe that through his ability to be everywhere, he, being Spirit, took on human flesh so that that flesh was kept pure like no other man in history. This man, being absolutely pure, took the punishment for your sin and mine and died a horrible physical death as a sign that spiritual separation from God had occurred because of the horribleness of your and my sin. Then having conquered death that man came back to life to prove that he had truly conquered death, never to die again, so he could continually intercede and continually offer assurance of eternal life to all those who chose to honour him by believing in his authority and power to do that. This is the truth of God. This man was Jesus Christ, Hazrat 'Isa al-Masih ibn Miriam, of whom his birth, death and resurrection were prophesied hundreds and thousands of years before he came to earth.

Third, when we see the beginning of a change of character in our lives we must not begin to trust in that new character to save us or outweigh our bad deeds. We must simply continue to acknowledge that because of our failures we deserve eternal separation from God and then humbly continue to be thankful and trust in God's love and acceptance for us in Christ Jesus. Then the change of character will truly be a sweet fragrance to God. Likewise, if we fail in one point or another, we need to realise that he loved us first while we were living in failure. We simply need to admit that failure and continue to humbly trust in his love and acceptance through Jesus Christ.

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