**Book received for consideration. Post contains affiliate links. All thoughts are 100% my own.
Despite our professions of belief, our baptisms, and our membership in the church, many of us secretly wonder, Am I truly saved? We worry that our love for Jesus isn't fervent enough (or isn't as fervent as someone else's). We worry that our faith isn't strong enough. We struggle through the continuing presence of sin in our lives. All this steals the joy of our salvation and can lead us into a life characterized by legalism, perfectionism, and works righteousness--the very life Jesus freed us from at the cross!
But Greg Gilbert has a message for the anxious believer--be assured. Assured that your salvation experience was real. Assured that your sins--past, present, and future--are forgiven. Assured that everyone stumbles. Assured that Jesus is not your judge but your advocate. With deep compassion, Gilbert comforts readers, encouraging them to release their guilt, shame, and anxiety to rejoice in and follow hard after the One who set them free.
Greg Gilbert (MDiv, Southern Seminary) is the author of Favor and What Is the Gospel? The senior pastor of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, he lives with his wife, Moriah, and their three children in Kentucky, where he enjoys basketball, coffee, and Thai food.
As Christians, we know that the very basis of our religion is our salvation: that Christ died on the cross so that we may have eternal life not by anything that we have done, but through His sacrifice and grace alone.
We KNOW this, we tell ourselves and others this often. Still, sometime anxiety can start to creep in bringing with it thoughts of doubt. At one point in our walk or another, I feel this is likely something that all Christians will deal with to some degree. Some may doubt God himself of course... but for so many others, we start to doubt ourselves. We know that Jesus paid that ultimate price and that He is the only way to salvation... but is our faith strong enough? what if we're not as 'good' a Christian as so and so. what if we struggle to do the right thing? what if, what if, what if? That doubts starts to creep in and can fill us with fear and make us feel like we just cannot be good Christians. That's a dangerous idea but one that is all too common. And it is just those doubts that 'Assured' seeks to address.
This was a really great read. It's of course not a lighthearted read, tackling with these deep questions that plague our walks of faith. Still, in the end I think we can all walk away with a bit of peace...and more importantly, assurance. Many of the verses that we read throughout this book are going to be verses that we are all very much familiar with. But despite our familiarity, sometimes the details can be lost in us. We need to take a deeper look and discover what they're really saying and this book does just that in a way that makes sense. It was a fairly quick read- I personally finished in just a few hours- but packed full of scriptural references and assurances of our salvation throughout. Each chapter takes a look at where are doubts stem from, the lies that hold us back and more importantly, why we can and should rest assure that despite our imperfections, salvation is not lost.
Overall, it was a really interesting read and one that I would definitely recommend to anyone who deals with that same doubt.
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