To Encourage You

Hebrews 6:11-12 “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Have you ever been sure about something and then found out that your assurance had been naïve and baseless in the end? Several years ago our family had reservations to rent a house for a vacation in Maine. Then Covid struck, and the restrictions we faced due to state government regulations were so onerous that we decided not to go.  And while we had already made a down payment to reserve the house, we had trip insurance – so no worries, correct?  But then I checked the fine print.  This insurance was considered null and void if the reason we cancelled was some action that the government had taken.  So our insurance went out the window, and in our case it was no better than no insurance at all.  Thankfully, we were able to work out a change in reservation date with the home’s owner, so there was no loss in the end – but, again, no thanks to the trip “insurance.” 

While finding out that we were mistaken about the precautions we had taken about a vacation investment was one thing, to be mistaken about “insurance” about eternal things is quite another.  That’s what the passage above is talking about.  It talks about having full assurance about spiritual issues, and in particular full assurance about eternal life.  Do you realize that there are many people who are “sure” about their eternity, but that assurance is based on false ideas?  While they are trusting in some things they may have heard from the Bible, they’ve not read or understood the whole thing.  There are people I’ve spoken to over the years who have told me that they are Christians.  If you were to ask them, they would tell you that because they are Christians, they are assured of heaven someday.  They would tell you that they had a spiritual experience at one time or another. Perhaps they went to a Billy Graham crusade and responded to the invitation as the choir sang “Just as I Am” at the end. Maybe it was as a child that they “prayed a prayer for Jesus to come into their heart.”  However, their lives show no indication today that they really are Christians.  Their lives are indistinguishable from those who never had such an “experience” and who have never claimed to be Christians.  So, what’s going on?  What’s the problem here? 

Well, if we again look at the passage above from the book of Hebrews, we see that there are two distinguishing marks of “full assurance of hope until the end.” One is faith. That’s simply trusting in what God has said, and particularly trusting what God has said about the gospel, which tells us the way of eternal life. But then the Holy Spirit tells us that if that faith is genuine, it will be borne out by our works (James 2:14-16).  In other words, our lives will reflect the fact that we have been transformed by the power of God, and there will be fundamental change in our natures.  There will be a newfound desire to glorify God.  And while many people seemingly start out this way, Jesus warned that many that have an early appearance of true spiritual life eventually turn away, for that “appearance” was never the real thing. He talks about this in the “parable of the soils” which is found in Matthew 13, Luke 8 and Mark 4.  In this parable, Jesus talks about the seed (i.e., the Word of God) falling on different types of “soils,” which is a reference to people’s hearts.  In some cases, the seed finds no place to take root. In other cases, the seed springs up quickly with signs of life, but eventually, because of the cares of this world, the desire for money, or trouble of various kinds, that seed withers and dies, unfruitful in the end.  It is only on one type of soil that the seed fully takes root. Jesus calls this the “good soil” and He tells us that this is the person who hears the Word, understands it, and by persevering faith, produces spiritual fruit. Some have called this “the perseverance of the saints,” which is characteristic of all true saints. In the passage above from Hebrews it’s called the “patience” which along with true “faith” results in “inheritance of the promises,” i.e., all the promises of the Word of God, which includes eternal life. 

So, does that describe your “faith”? Is it a faith that is producing spiritual fruit?  Is it a faith that is growing and enduring the trials of life? If so, it is that faith that gives us assurance, for it’s such faith that is the real thing.  However, if your “faith” is something other than this, be careful that you are not banking on something that fails you in the end.  True faith, the faith that is sure, is a faith that endures.  It’s not a flash in the pan, a one-time event, or an emotional experience.  The apostle John put it this way about those who started well but then walked away: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

So, do you have the assurance of eternal life?  If so, is it rooted in the faith and patience that marks all true believers.  If not, you may want to check the Word of God a little more closely, for you may have missed the whole truth about what the assurance on which the inheritance of God’s promises is always based.