I am a firm believer that one needs to shift and grow throughout life. One of my biggest fears is reaching stagnation and getting to a place where I am not teachable and not hungry to learn. Open-mindedness. Kind of. But it’s not the word I am quite looking for because the way it comes across in our culture.. “your mind needs to start open and stay open” would be our colloquial definition. Well I say if that is the case.. nothing will stay in the mind and everything will fall out and you will have nothing left of worth to think about. Rather, learning and the mind being open is like the mouth being open. It’s for a purpose and when something of substance and nourishment is put in, it needs to clamp down on it. For that my friends is how we grow.
We will call #9 of my biggest things I have learnt in life: Assurance.
I grew up in a church background that thinks you can lose your salvation.
So I asked Jesus into my heart a LOT as a kid. Who knew if it really stuck or not? I started to be a bit more confident when I was in high school that I actually knew Jesus. There had been a lot of fruit in my life since I was young that he was there and changing me. And then with a twist of irony, the church taught me to read the Bible really well, and that was what undid their theology for me!
I read things like Ephesians 1
So God seals us with his Spirit when we are saved and he is the guarantee of our inheritance?! (heaven) It sounded like he had a lot more to do with my salvation and I could trust him a lot more to hold on to me than I realized!
John 10 was also a big one for me in that realm.
And so I left what I believed as a child and young adult and came to grow in confidence that the Lord could really save us from real sin and real hell and hold on to us and be changing us to be more like Jesus even though we mess up and sin.. because it was his work in our lives. And He is faithful.
“Without Bible assurance of your salvation you could neither be happy nor useful. How could you enjoy something you did not know you had, and how could you be happy unless you knew that you were eternally saved? You could never be happy with the thought that you are saved now, but that you might be lost tomorrow. My beloved, there is quite a difference in holding on to a limb and in being in the limb. Born again people are not holding on to Christ: they are in Christ. Read Rom. 8:1-2; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 2:20.
