For many believers, assurance of salvation is something of a struggle.  Some believers have it, and some believers don’t.  Often times, the evil one challenges believers with doubt – specifically, doubting God and His Word.  In the place of God’s Word, often times believers trust their misinformed and unguided feelings instead of trusting the Word of God.  This was certainly true for me when I was a teenager.

To quote my New Testament professor at RTS, Dr. Bob Cara, “Feelings aren’t bad, but bad feelings are bad.”  What he means is this: God made man to have feelings.  There is no doubt about that!  Just read the Psalms…they are filled with the ups and downs of feelings!

But while feelings are part of the “good” that God created, often times our feelings get misguided or wrongly informed with the lies of this world.  When that happens, we often let our feelings dictate our reality instead of God’s Word.  This is not healthy for the Christian, especially when it comes to assurance of salvation.

In our text today, many believers are letting unbiblical and misguided feelings dominate their lives, and this has led to a lack of assurance of salvation.  But as this text teaches us, “whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart” (1 John 3:20).  In other words, which is more trustworthy?  The way you feel or what God says?  What God says, of course!  We all know that, but many times this is hard to apply to our lives.

In this sermon, we will learn how to apply Scripture to our lives so that we can have feelings that are informed by Scripture.  And we will learn this: Our faith, which is based on Scripture, needs to be fed by Scripture.  Allowing God’s Word to direct our feelings and emotions will lead to assurance of salvation and to a healthy life of prayer.

Rev. Adam Mumpower, Senior Pastor