Daily Devotional
You Can Be Sure

December 6, 2021

Ponder This

A woman once told the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody, “I’ve been saved twenty-five years, and I’ve never had one single doubt.” He said, “Madame, I doubt you’ve been saved.” That’d be like someone saying they’d been married fifty years and had never had an argument. I’d doubt they’d been married.

I’m not trying to say arguments are good. I’m not trying to say that pain is good. I’m not trying to say doubts are good, but they are facts of life. John’s words in today’s verse imply that it is possible to be saved and have doubts about it. John was trying to clear up those doubts for the Christians to whom he wrote. John was pointing the way for us to be able to say, “Praise God, I know that I know that I know that my sins are forgiven, Christ is in my heart, and Heaven in my home.” The assurance of your salvation is the base you work from. When I know my future is secure, then I can concentrate on the present. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12). Likewise, John said, I wrote this book that you might have assurance that you might KNOW—not hope, think, wish, or surmise—but that you might know you have eternal life.

• What things cause you to doubt your relationship with God?
• How does regular time in the Scriptures give you assurance of your life in Christ?

Practice This

Work this week to memorize 2 Timothy 1:12 and 1 John 5:13 so that you can return to them regularly in times of doubt.