So my encouragement is to know your Bible! Don’t let fickle emotions or situations be the driver behind your assurance. Let the unchanging word of God be the thing that informs what you know. Don’t just know true things, but know the truth! Know God’s word for yourself, so that you can fend off the attack of the enemy with the sword of the Spirit. 

“Does Jesus love you?”
“Yes. He does.”
“How do you know?”

I heard this conversation during the funeral of the man who asked it. The first question seemed simple enough, but the second question was devastating. The man who was on the receiving end of that question had no idea how he could know that Jesus loved him. He had some good feelings toward Jesus. He had heard someone tell him that Jesus loved him. But he had no idea how he could know it. By God’s grace, I want to tell you how you can know these things.

We Know by What has been Written

In the book of 1 John, the Apostle writes about Christ and about the Christian life. And he tells us something really important; He tells us why he was writing. “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). How does John expect you to know? By what was written! Luke does the same thing in his epistle when he writes, “It seemed good to me… to write an orderly account for you… that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:3-4). Again, why did he write? So that you would know! This is a really important point: We can know things from and about God because of what has been written.

People are looking for so many different ways to be certain about God or themselves. Different philosophies, signs and wonders, visions and dreams.

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