I no longer lose sleep wondering if my faith is strong enough to merit salvation, as I sometimes did when I was young. Salvation is not simply about having sins forgiven, though it is certainly about that. We are justified by Christ’s perfect obedience. I have a greater and better assurance now that rests upon that work of Christ rather than anything in myself. If you focus exclusively on the forgiveness aspect at the expense of the imputed righteousness, you will eventually experience a lack of assurance, even as I did.

Today I continue my series in which I thank God for the final four things in the Apostles’ Creed, each of which has meant something special to me this year.

Part 1: Then

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,

Whose sin is covered!

How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,

And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

Psalm 32:1-2

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that God forgives sins. From a very early age, I realized that I was a sinner who needed a savior, and that the savior was Jesus Christ. I knew that if I said, “I’m sorry. Forgive me,” He would make me clean.

The full internalization of that truth was another matter. Growing up, I was told most of the right things and did most of the right things. I put my faith in Jesus for salvation, was baptized at a young age, had nearly perfect church attendance, and spent the rest of the week at a Christian school. I knew for certain that I could not earn salvation by works, and that I must trust completely in the sacrifice of Christ. Even so, I never felt like I was one of the really good Christians: the people who closed their eyes when they sang, read the Bible constantly, led people to Christ, and went off to become pastors and missionaries. I did not have the same kind of emotional swells.

As such, I often doubted. I knew that salvation was by faith, but did I have enough faith? After all, I had moments when I doubted certain things. I didn’t feel anything supernatural when I prayed. Did real Christians have these issues? How could I know that there was actually a God there? The good Christians seemed to get some kind of message or spiritual sensation during prayer time. I was honestly worried that I might subconsciously be an atheist. Then one day it occurred to me that if I was afraid that I might not believe in God’s existence, I probably believed in God’s existence. Who fears a God that doesn’t exist?

Even when I had mostly gotten over that issue, I was not at all convinced that God looked on me favorably. I just didn’t seem as good as those other Christians. My father was a prominent lay leader in our church. In comparison, I felt very average and not “on fire” for God. Somewhere along the way, a well-meaning person told me that even though God had forgiven all our sins when we were saved, any new sins in our life must be confessed before God would listen to our prayers. From that point on, I always began every prayer by saying, “Please forgive me for my sins.” A pastor mentioned the verse in Psalms where David says, “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.” (Psalm 19:12) I began confessing hidden sins as well—that is, those I didn’t even know existed.

You would think that under such circumstances I might have quickly signed up for every spiritual activity and read every Christian book under the sun, desperately hoping to improve my standing. No, I did not. Why? Because I was caught in a kind of Catch-22. I had been led to believe that things done purely out of duty were rather pointless. Going to church was of little value if you didn’t really love the experience in your heart. Givers ought to be cheerful. Those who changed diapers in the nursery ought not do so begrudgingly. So when the youth group was going to take a survival excursion for five days near leech infested waters, and it was presented to me as an opportunity for spiritual growth (the kind of thing a good Christian would do, no doubt), I thought to myself, “A week living off canned food and waking up covered in dew sounds terrible.” I think my parents were a bit disappointed that I didn’t participate more with the youth group, but I simply took little joy in it. I was shy and many of those activities seemed to focus on doing something daring. I often stayed home and thought myself a terrible person, but then again, I wouldn’t have gained any brownie points with God anyway if I had been grumpy the whole time.

Never once did I imagine that when I got to heaven God would say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I was fully expecting, “Ok, I’ll let you in…” Please don’t misunderstand: no one around me suggested that I ought to feel this way. I heard a lot more about the love of God on any given day than I did about His judgment. People would talk about conversion and that moment of embracing Christ in faith, inviting Him to become the Lord of your life. (Of course, I hadn’t had a very memorable conversion at three years old.) I was told that it wasn’t about what I did, but what Christ did. When God looked at me, He saw Christ. None of this was particularly theologically robust, but it would have been enough for most people. Unfortunately, I was not most people. Thus, I continued along fairly certain that I was saved and God loved me, but equally uncertain that God liked me.

Shortly after I started attending a Christian college, I was hit with a very bad spell of depression and anxiety. I began seeing a particularly good Christian counselor on campus, and he asked me an important question: “Do you see God as primarily loving or judging?” I knew the correct answer was “both” or “equal”. Yet I answered “judging” without hesitation, for that was how I usually felt in my relationship with God. I was mentally cowering before Him like a serf, not sitting on His lap like a daughter.

Read More