Grace / That You May Know
When You Don't Feel Saved
God's promise is still true on the days when you're having trouble believing it applies to you.
You can understand that God saves people through faith in Jesus and still have days when you don't feel saved. The explanation makes sense. You believe it. But when you try to think about yourself as somebody God wants, something doesn't seem to fit.
Maybe you remember something you've done. Maybe somebody has told you what a disappointment you are. Maybe you're worn out, and confidence is one more thing you don't seem to have much of today.
John wrote to Christians who needed reassurance. People they'd known had abandoned Jesus and left them behind. The believers who remained had been shaken by it. John wanted them to understand what was true about them because they belonged to Christ.
He knew their own hearts could condemn them. And he told them, "God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything." ()
Your heart can get things wrong
When John speaks about the heart, he's talking about our thinking as well as our feelings. We can think ourselves into a bad conclusion. We can feel ashamed and then come up with a whole collection of reasons why we deserve to feel that way.
Being convinced of something doesn't make it true. That's as true of a bad opinion of yourself as it is of an inflated one.
When I preached this, I asked people to imagine me strapping them into a lie detector that actually works. Do you accept God's standard? Can you fess up when you screw up? When it comes down to Team Jesus against everybody else, are you with Team Jesus? Most folks could give me a yes on those. Then I asked, "Are you dead certain, a hundred percent, that you're a beloved child of God right now?" That one's harder. But it isn't about all your feelings. John gave his readers plain things they could check, and then he told them what God says about people who believe in His Son.
God knows the whole situation. He knows what you've done. He also knows what Jesus has done for you. He knows the difference between your sin and somebody else's sin against you. He knows things about your life that you've misunderstood.
So when your own thoughts tell you that you can't possibly belong to Him, you have a reason to question those thoughts. John says God has given life to people who believe in His Son. You can bring your conclusions about yourself to that promise. ()
Different troubles need different help
If you've done something wrong, be specific about it. You lied. You hurt somebody. You took something that wasn't yours. Admit it to God, ask for forgiveness, and deal honestly with the person you wronged. Jesus is able to help you with actual sin.
But sometimes you're condemning yourself because somebody treated you badly. That's a different problem, and I've written about it in When You Blame Yourself. You can't make restitution for somebody else's cruelty toward you. His treatment of you doesn't tell you what you're worth to God.
And sometimes you don't know why you're struggling. You don't have to invent a sin to explain every miserable feeling. Tell God you're having a hard time, and let somebody you trust help you think it through.
Confidence can take time to grow
If you've spent years expecting rejection from God, a paragraph on a website may not make that expectation disappear. You may understand the promise before you find it easy to live with it.
Keep coming back to what God has said. Read John's letter with the purpose he gives for writing it: he wants believers to know they have eternal life. And spend time with Christians who believe that promise and treat you accordingly.
Some days you may need somebody to remind you of what you already know. We do that for each other. God put us in a family where people can encourage us, pray with us, and help us remember what Jesus has done.
That doesn't make your faith fake. It means you're somebody who needs help. Jesus has always been willing to help people who need Him.
You can talk to God today
John's concern is that his readers have confidence before God. He wants them to be able to come to Him freely. That includes the days when their own hearts are giving them trouble. ()
Tell Him, "I believe you, but I'm having a hard time believing this about myself. Help me." Ask for what you need without first getting yourself into a better mood.
God hasn't asked you to make eternal life feel real before He'll give it to you. He gives life in His Son. If you're trusting Jesus, you can thank Him for that gift today, even while you're asking Him to help you understand it more fully.
— tobe