Deny it!

I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one shall snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else, so no one can kidnap them from me. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30 TLB)

If you have ever wondered just how 'secure' your salvation is, then wonder no more. The place we hold in God's heart isn't going to change, no matter how poorly we perform or how far we drift from closeness with him. While he'd like nothing more than our uncompromising love and dedication to his principles each and every time we make a decision, he knows the reality of the struggle with our will. He knows we will slip up from time to time and that we will need his forgiveness. If we doubt his love or his power in our lives, we can rest assured in knowing there is absolutely no room for us to doubt. The gift of his Son's life was enough to prove the depth of his love.

Sometimes we might believe we can 'slip away' by the power of some force outside of us - like the enemy of our soul snatching us away from the keeping power of God. This is impossible, although the enemy of our souls will do everything he can to convince us otherwise. Why? He knows if he gets us to doubting our relationship with God, we drift into a 'performance pattern' of trying to 'earn' our salvation again and again. In fact, he points out our shortcomings to get us to do just that - to get us to attempt to do what has already been done for us is really his aim. He doesn't want us to accept that the work is finished on our behalf. He wants us to believe there is still something we have to do to 'earn' our right-standing with God.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but he won't rest in attempting to convince us otherwise. It is this seed of doubt he plants and without fail, our minds and hearts go into overdrive to agree with him at times! The scripture we should stand on when this occurs is the one I chose for us today - no on shall snatch us away from Christ - no one is more powerful - no one has authority over our lives other than God himself. With this in mind, let me just say that we are expected to make right decisions. God doesn't want us making the wrong ones, but he makes a way for us to return to right-standing with him if we do. This is called grace.

Assurance is a tough thing sometimes, especially when people in our lives have let us down. We come to doubt intentions, mistrust promises, and be cautious in our approach to relationships because we have been burned by these things. I have never been burned by God. I have never had cause to doubt even one of his promises. I have never found his intentions on my behalf to be anything short of amazingly wonderful. It isn't easy trusting at times - especially when the world, Satan and his hosts, and even our own minds are causing us to doubt. One thing I know for sure - when I deny those doubts access to my mind and heart, I begin to find strength far outside my own capacity to walk without compromise. Try it - you may be surprised by the results! Just sayin!

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