A wise theologian once wrote that assurance is properly assurance of Christ. That is, faith should rest in Christ alone, not in self.
Don’t bank on what you don’t know. Bank on what you do know. Don’t hedge your bets based on your works, or your knowledge – for in these there will always be lack. Entrust your life to the Person Jesus. Entrust your investments to the man who is in heaven already, not your feeble efforts.
Focusing on your works will always drive you to works left undone, to time wasted in early years, and drag your mind away from thoughts of Christ. Away from Christ, your heart can only be dragged down into despair. He did not die to see you sink into despair. Whenever you look to yourself, look to Christ.
You are tempted to think you have wasted your life? Recall that your life is a vapor, and that God has ordained every day. All your days of your sin were not unknown to Him the day He saved you. No, but your life has been the preparation for the glory of God’s grace for all eternity!
You have sinned? Christ has saved! “Was your faithfulness crucified for you?”[1] Then why fill your mind with thoughts of your faithfulness and lack thereof rather than your Saviour?
You have wasted time? Christ has secured you for eternity, in which He will communicate the glory of His grace to you forever. If not for your wasted time, He could not show such mercies has He has prepared to show. If He has redeemed you, why do you regret what He has redeemed?
You are filled with regrets? Christ does not regret dying for you, even now for all the regrets that you carry. His heart goes out to you in grief, if for anything, for this: that you carry what He died to take for you. He designed to take the records of your debt, and here you are holding on to the pages of your greatest sorrow. Why, weary soul? Christ is more pleased to take your regrets than that you bear them.
You feel unworthy of heaven? God feels the world unworthy of you! If Christ is yours, what is all the world to you? Let your feet feel relieved of this soil, and let Christ take hold of what He has formed for the glory of His grace.
You regret displeasing Him? He has never asked more from you to please Him than your trust. From the sapling of faith, He grows in you all other fruits by His patient kindness working in your too will and to do. Will you not please Him now by childlike trust?
Please Him now! Be assured of Christ! Take your confidence from heaven, not earth. Let Him hold and bear your heart through death to Himself.
[1] Thomas Goodwin, Assurance: Our Confidence in Christ, Edited by Kevin Hay, p. 26.
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