In this article, we will examine five reasons why many believers who love and serve the Lord lack assurance.

False Conceptions of the Character of God⤒🔗

First, some believers do not have assurance of faith because they do not have a biblical understanding of God. The heart of a well-founded assurance of faith is, as Paul points out in Romans 8:31-39, a biblical understanding of who God is. Romans 8:31-32 says, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”

The heart of Paul’s assurance is obvious: God is for sinners. He sent His own Son into the world to die for sinners. Paul goes on to say, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (vv. 33-35a).

Paul’s understanding of God is the center of his assurance. God justifies and Christ makes intercession for us — who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Notice that Paul is not saying, “I am persuaded of God’s love because of something inside of me.” Rather, he is assured that he is a child of God because of what he knows about the love of Christ. The center of his thinking is not Paul or anything in himself; it is God! Paul’s concept of God gives rise to his assurance.

You may remember in Pilgrim’s Progress how the burden fell from Christian’s back at the cross. God’s love for sinners is most clearly displayed at the cross. Too many believers don’t really believe that. They don’t believe that God is truly like the father of the prodigal son who eagerly waits for his disobedient children to come home. They don’t believe that they are welcome to come to God and be freely forgiven of all their sins. Too many view God like the man in the parable of the talents who said to his lord, “I know that thou art a hard man.” Too many see God as harsh and unbending. But when we see what God is like at the cross in all His love and grace, we may come to assurance of faith, for then we see that the heart of God is yearn­ing for sinners. We see that He is willing to pay the supreme sacrifice to save. Then we believe that God sin­cerely says, “Come to me and be saved,” and say with Paul, “I am persuaded that nothing shall separate me from the love of God that is in Christ.” A right under­standing of the character of God lies at the heart of assurance of faith.

Lack of Clarity on Justification by Faith←⤒🔗

The second reason many believers lack assurance of faith is that they lack clarity on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. That doctrine is clearly spelled out in the Word of God in Romans 4:5: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness,” and in Galatians 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.”

Many do not understand that the Lord freely gives to those who ask of Him the results of all that Christ did on the cross (His passive obedience) and of His perfect life of obedience to the law (His active obedience). By this twofold obedience on behalf of sinners, God’s justice is satisfied. He thus may be just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). We can do nothing that will make us fit to receive God’s for­giveness and acceptable to God. As poor sinners, we receive the gift of salvation with simple faith and are justified; that is, we enter into a right relationship with the Lord. Still, it is easy to forget that nothing we do makes us acceptable to God and that God does not justify us because of our sincere sorrow for sin, our good works, or anything else. Justification by faith simply means that all our sins are forgiven because of what Christ has done.

Now it is true that God expects His people to walk in His ways. A person who is truly saved will begin to do certain things and avoid others. But we have to remember that none of this can be the grounds of our acceptance with God. All the fruits of the Holy Spirit do not make us more acceptable in God’s sight, for whatever we do is stained with sin. James says that if we are guilty of breaking the law at one point, we are guilty of breaking the whole law (James 3:2).

Thus, no Christian will ever feel that he is fit to be accepted by God. Even the most holy child of God can only be accepted by God because the merits of Christ are imputed to him. Once we understand and believe that, we are released from bondage. We may then go to God as sinners, knowing that God does not require anything of us as a condition of His grace. We may come as we are, resting completely and exclusively on Christ’s merits.

This continues to be an important factor in the lives of those who have been assured of their faith. Whenever they experience more sin, they are reminded that they are unworthy to be accepted by God and that if God was not willing to receive us as sinners for Christ’s sake, there would be no hope for anyone. That is what it means to live out of Christ, to need His forgiving grace every day, and to know that He is willing to wash away all our sins only for Christ’s sake. Justification by faith stands in the foreground of the experience of every child of God who has assurance.

Disobedience and Backsliding←⤒🔗

Some people do not receive assurance of faith because of their disobedience and backsliding. One cannot per­sist in high levels of assurance when he persists in low levels of obedience. How we live is an important factor in assurance. This truth must be balanced with the other factors we have already given; if any one factor is missing or receives too much emphasis, assurance runs awry. If little emphasis is placed on the love of God and on justification by faith alone, but much emphasis is placed on how we live, problems result, for then the emphasis shifts towards the idea that one has to earn God’s favor. On the other hand, if too much emphasis is on the love of God and on justification by faith and not enough on the holy life, there is reason to wonder if our faith is true.

Some people see God’s grace in the gospel and understand justification by faith, but they are not careful in their Christian walk. They may be true Christians, for none of God’s people live exactly as they should. But those who are slipshod in their Christian walk need not be surprised if they lack assurance, or, at best, have only weak assurance. They need to ask, “Are we earnest in our attempts to live according to the law of God?”

There is tension here: God’s people may be encouraged when they see signs of the fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, but they will also be conscious of many areas in which they fall short. So the greatest factor in their assurance will be their under­standing of God’s grace and that He is willing to forgive them for Christ’s sake.

There is also tension concerning the Spirit’s work in our hearts, which is reflected in how we live. If we emphasize only the grace of God, then we can be swept into “easy believism.” If we emphasize only the Christian life or the work of the Spirit, we are in danger of “works righteousness” or even a subtle kind of “expe­riential works righteousness.”

Let’s relate this directly to the words of Scripture. On the one hand, Jesus says, “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Likewise, Paul says, “I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ” (Rom. 8:38-39). On the other hand, John says, “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). These are both biblical truths, and assurance usually grows when we properly emphasize both.

Ignorance of Satisfying Evidences of Grace←⤒🔗

Some children of God fail to receive assurance because they do not know what evidences of grace to look for in their lives. For example, God says that hungering and thirsting after Christ’s righteousness is a sign of grace (Matt. 5:6), but if you do not know that is a sign of grace, it will not give you much comfort. If love for the brethren is a sign of grace (1 John 3:14), but if you do not know that, you will not get much comfort from loving the brethren. We have to know what signs indi­cate the Spirit’s saving work in our lives.

William Guthrie, author of The Christian’s Great Interest, one of the best works on assurance, makes the following remarks about people who do not know what would satisfy them:

Men do not consent upon what would satisfy them. They complain that God will not show unto them what He is about to do with them. But yet they can­not say what would satisfy them concerning His purpose. This is a sad thing. Shall we think those are serious who have never as yet pitched on what would satisfy them, nor are making earnest inquiry after what should satisfy? If the Lord had left us in the dark in that matter we were more excusable, but since the grounds of satisfaction and the true marks of an interest in Christ are so clear and so frequent in Scripture, none can pretend any excuse here.

God has given so much Scripture about the marks of a saving relationship with Him that we ought to be able, with the Spirit’s assistance, to discern our state before God. That is not to say that our state will always be clear. But, for the most part, we should know where we stand with God. The reason that some do not have such assurance is that they do not know the marks of true conversion.

Lack of Acknowledging What God has Done←⤒🔗

Some of God’s people might know the marks of a sav­ing change, but they are afraid that they don’t possess those marks in sufficient strength and clarity. For example, one mark of grace is a hatred of and fleeing from sin. Some people may have experienced such aversion to sin but, at times, their hatred of sin and holy warfare against it become weak. They then con­clude that their soul is not right with God. They are not willing to acknowledge God’s work in them unless it meets their requirements and expectations.

In his work Heaven on Earth, another classic on assurance, Thomas Brooks pictures the heart of man as a courtroom — the old nature on one side, the new nature on the other. The old nature is the result of Satan’s work, and the new nature the result of God’s work. Brooks says that some Christians take the side of the old nature, trying to prove that the new nature doesn’t exist or is not really part of God’s work. Brooks writes:

Let me tell thee, it is thy wisdom and thy duty to remember the command of God that doth prohibit thee from bearing false witness against thy neighbor. That same command doth enjoin thee not to bear false witness against the work of grace upon thine own heart, against the precious and glorious things that God hath done for thy soul. How dare you bear false witness against your own soul and the gracious work of God upon thee? If this be not the way to keep off assurance and to keep thy soul in darkness, I know nothing.

Brooks’s point is that there are good signs and bad signs in every believer’s life. It is wrong to acknowledge only the bad signs while failing to acknowledge the good things that the Lord has done in our hearts and in our lives.

Are you having trouble with assurance? I exhort you to examine yourself according to what is written above. Do not rest in the pious cliché, “God has to give it to me.” God has to give assurance to you, no doubt, but He has also revealed how He sovereignly gives it: through the use of right thinking and the use of our own minds as we prayerfully meditate upon and appropriate His promises, examining our lives by the marks that He has given us in His Word. As the Puritans were fond of emphasizing, we need a Spirit-assisted self-examination that arrives at a conclusion, yes or no. Too much or too little self-examination arrives at no conclusion. It ends with a “perhaps” or a hope or a rash presumption. We should never be satisfied with a “perhaps” or with any kind of presumption. God says to us all, “Make your calling and election sure.”