Lord, I believe.
Help Thou my unbelief.
That is our table prayer,
our bedside prayer,
our office prayer,
our driving prayer,
our 24/7 petition.
Lord, I do believe,
but I also don’t believe.
I am a cocktail of contradictions:
double-hearted,
forked-tongued,
pulled heavenward
and hellward
every step I take.
I fear you but I also fear failure.
I trust you but I also trust myself.
I love you but I also love the limelight.
Lord,
I am a saint and a sinner,
your bride and the devil’s whore.
Lord, I believe.
Help Thou my unbelief.
I genuinely believe if you have no assurance of your salvation in Christ alone and his finished work that you don not know God and need to seek Jesus for salvation.
I know this might sound cold but let me explain. When you are comforted, when you seek his presence and is reciprocated you do not doubt who your Father is.
You KNOW Him as the lover of your soul and your only hiding place, He is familiar and close.
When you are His sheep, His spirit within you is so sweet even in the midst of suffering. There is a hope and a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Thank you Jesus.
Founders Press began 30 years ago this year! We are so thankful to the Lord for how He has sustained us and blessed our efforts over the last three decades.
To celebrate 30 years of publishing, we will be offering many giveaways over the next few weeks! Make sure you’re following our new Founders Press social media pages to not miss your chance to win FREE resources.
First up…
📚 GIVEAWAY: CONFESSIONAL BUNDLE
Three winners will receive:
- The 1689 Confession in Modern English
- Baptist Symbolics Volume 1 & 2
- 1689 Bookmark
- 1689 Coffee Mug
To enter:
- Follow @Founders_Press.
- Share this post.
- Comment below tagging 1 friend.
Giveaway will close Monday, May 25th at 11:59 PM ET. Winners will be randomly chosen and contacted next week via private DM.
🚨 We will only contact you from THIS account. Beware of fraudulent accounts claiming to be Founders Press or Founders Ministries. All accounts asking you to sign up, open links, or pay for entrance for this giveaway are fraudulent.
🚨 This giveaway is only open to participants aged 18+ with a mailing address in the contiguous United States ONLY. Giveaway will close Monday, May 25th at 11:59 PM ET.
Just a friendly warning. We don’t even make $200k per year in Congress despite working nearly 140 days. If we aren’t properly compensated, a lot of us will go to the private sector and you will be left with some real idiots in Congress.
For many years, I was taught to question my salvation, and I got really good at it.
To be clear, my problem was not that I did not believe, nor that I lacked faith; rather, it stemmed from the fact that I would not stop evaluating it.
I would ask myself questions, like "Did I really feel enough conviction?", and then I would try to convince myself that maybe I was truly saved at a different time when I could pinpoint a feeling of 'conviction'.
Or I would wonder if my repentance was really sincere. So I would convince myself that the space between my sins was enough to prove that I really meant it.
Or I would evaluate the sincerity of my faith and try to convince myself that I had enough at the moment of conversion, even though it felt weak at the moment.
I would be okay for a while, but then I would hear a sermon that made me question whether my experience matched what was being described, or I would spend too much time in introspection and end up right back in the same place.
Now, I realize I can sound like a broken record talking about assurance, or the lack of it, but that is because all of this kept me from any real assurance for years at a time.
The real change, for me, did not come from a trip to an altar, and it did not come from finally convincing myself that I was right. It came when I realized I had the whole direction backwards.
It came when I stopped asking, “Is my faith real enough?” and started asking, “Is Christ enough for sinners?”
It came when I stopped asking, “Did I really repent?” and started asking, “Is Christ enough for sinners?”
It came when I stopped asking, “Did I feel enough conviction?” and started asking, “Is Christ enough for sinners?”
And the answer to all of those questions is the same.
He is enough.
So if you find yourself constantly evaluating your conviction, your repentance, your faith, and wondering why you cannot land anywhere solid, this is the problem.
You are looking in the wrong place.
Look to Christ as He is given to sinners, and believe.
You have, perhaps, dear reader, long been in want of the assurance that you are saved. But you have sought it in yourself, and not in Christ.
You have been searching for evidence amid the shadows and the taint of your own heart, the imperfect traces of your own doings, the varied exercises of your mind, and have sought them in vain. But now try the experiment―an experiment that has never failed one poor soul―of finding the evidence of your present salvation in a believing looking to a present Savior.
Rest in Jesus from the burden and the guilt of sin;
rest in Jesus from the conflict with doubt and fear;
rest in Jesus from the fear of death and the dread of condemnation; rest in Jesus from your entire self;
rest in His finished work, in His accepted sacrifice, in His boundless grace, in His unchanging love, and present intercession and your assurance will be built upon a rock, against which no force of Satan or unbelief shall ever prevail.
Octavius Winslow (From Grace to Glory, p. 89)
What does it actually mean for "the righteous to live by faith" when everything is going wrong?
By John Owen
Edited by @CameronDula
Series editor @DustinBenge
When God told Paul that His grace was sufficient for him it is "as though the mighty ocean should say to the wee laddie playing on the sands, Little boy, my ocean depths are sufficient to fill your bucket."
~ J. Sidlow Baxter