Being Reassured by Truth, Obedience, and Belief

The truth of our lives reassures what God has established

Once again, John places an emphasis on both truth and reassurance of salvation. “By this” is a reference back to the previous passage, which firmly established the fact that the Christian will both the practice of righteousness as well as a love for their brother. If these things are present in our lives, then they are true about us and when stated to others will be the truth. This truth is what reassures our hearts. Which begs the question, why is it that our hearts are in need of reassurance? Verse 20 explains that our heart will attempt to condemn us.

What is being stated here runs counter to what the world would have you to believe about your heart. The popular song would tell you to “listen to your heart” and so many people would say that you should follow your heart. But the scriptures tell us that the heart can be wrong at times. In fact, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” We have a tendency to forget this from time to time. It is very possible for the heart to lead us astray, even when it comes to being reminded that we have indeed been saved.

This condemnation comes in many forms but most often it happens because we fail to remember the truths of God. Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of man is enough. Forgiveness is offered. And because of the Holy Spirit, we have the continued strength and motivation to do what it is that God has commanded us to do.

There is also a tendency to continue living in sin and believing that we can do so and be okay. There are many ways that the heart can twist the truth of the gospel and become problematic when reassurance is concerned.

So what can we lean on if we can’t always trust our heart? As always, you can trust God because “He knows everything.” God is greater than our hearts and knows our salvation better than we know it. In fact, it is because He is the source of our salvation, it makes perfect sense that we should place our trust in Him for reassurance over our own hearts.

To sum up these two verses, we should absolutely look to the truth of our own lives and filter those truths through the inspired scriptures that we have been graciously given. If we simply evaluate our own lives, we will inevitably begin to create or alter the standards to fit our own desires or become overwhelmed by the weight of our own sin. Instead, believe that Christ is enough. Believe in your own obedience! Continue to pursue righteousness. But beyond the truth in our lives, we must remember that

Confidence comes from keeping His commandments

I am more and more convinced every day the importance of being faithful. John has already put into place how we defeat condemnation of the heart. It is because of that that we are now able to stand before God both here on earth as well as in judgment with confidence.

It is because of this stance that John states that we will have favor before God. What a privilege it is to even be able to stand before Him and present to Him our desires and requests.

It is important to remember that with this favor comes the understanding and expectation that our requests will align with His will. Contrary to what some might say, God does not grant us every single thing that we request of Him. He works, in His sovereignty, according to His will and the building of His kingdom. But He also hears our petitions and will often grant them.

This favor, as the end of the verse reminds us, comes because of our faithfulness to Him in keeping His commandments. And our desire to obey Him comes solely from our desires being conformed to His will so that the commands that He has given will be obeyed.

I want to pause on the last clause that’s included here. Do you desire to do what pleases God? It is clearly stated here that if we keep His commands, He is pleased by that! Even your attendance and participation here today is pleasing to God.

It is vital that we remain faithful and keep His commands. And finally,

The reward for salvation here on earth is the Holy Spirit

In the final two verses of this chapter, John discusses the most important commandment to be kept: belief in Jesus Christ. It is life changing for a person to believe in the name of Jesus and all that it represents. For a person to keep this command, they obtain the priceless adoption of God the Father and eternal salvation.

John then points back to what has already been discussed as the need for the Christian to love their brother, which as we have talked about extensively, comes as a result of a person’s salvation.

So why should a person do this? What does it matter? Well, the ultimate reward is eternity spent in heaven with Jesus Christ, but the text points us to the reward that we have while we are here on earth. God abides with the disciple of Christ by way of the Holy Spirit.

There is so much that is included in possession of the Holy Spirit. For starters, we will have His fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These attributes are invaluable in our interactions with other people as they will identify us with the God of the bible.

The Holy Spirit also convicts us. If we desire to please God by keeping His commandments, we need some sort of guard rails and conviction serves as our guard to keep us on the straight and narrow.

He guides our actions and our words as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission. We have been tasked with a mighty work to build the Kingdom of God and we have the necessary help because of the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

He also continues to shape and mold us into the image of Christ. Listen to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:11: And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Finally, the Holy Spirit protects us from the attacks of the evil one. As Paul writes in Ephesians 4:30, we were sealed on the day of our redemption with the Holy Spirit and it is because of that sealing that we have certainty of our salvation.

All of this comes back to reassurance. We are reassured by God’s truth over what our heart says. We are reassured of our salvation as we continue to keep His commandments. And we are reassured as the Holy Spirit dwells within us and works in our lives!