The Source of Doubt

[I went AWOL for a few days. Did you miss me? I hate to admit it but I enjoyed my little mini vacation!]

If we have trusted in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, yet continually doubt our salvation, then our entire lives will be out of balance. Major areas of our faith life begin to crumble, and we limit the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us. It's impossible to live an effective, empowered, Spirit-filled life if we're always facing doubts about our eternal salvation.

Why, then, do we as believers so often doubt? Let's look a 5 key reasons.

1. Sin. When there is disobedience in our lives, our prayers and spiritual understanding are thwarted. So it's understandable that sin can hinder and confuse our understanding of the truth of salvation.

2. False Teaching. If we've been taught that we must earn our salvation by our behavior, or if someone comes along and says that there are things we must do to gain salvation, then false teachings are going to warp our understanding.

3. Overemphasis on emotions. Too often the experience of being saved is tied to an "emotional high." This leads many of us to doubt our salvation during times of normal or "low" emotions. This is especially true for people who suffer from bi-polar disorders.

4. Disbelief. We must understand that disbelief is different from unbelief. Disbelief is the conscious act of not believing in the face of overwhelming proof. Acts 16:31 clearly states, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." So if we've made this saving confession, then we are saved. Period. End of discussion. Doubting the truth of this Scripture means that we fail to accept God's word.

5. Satanic assault. Satan's goal is, and has always been, to separate us from God. One of his most effective tactics is to cause us to question our standing in salvation. If he can cause us to doubt he will have been successful in driving a wedge between us and the Lord.

If we doubt our salvation after accepting the forgiveness and grace of God, then we need to carefully examine our hearts. Are any of these five lies corroding our relationship with the Lord? If so, we need to allow the Lord to comfort us with His love and the truth of our salvation. We pay nothing for our salvation. And nothing can prevent us from being saved if we accept Christ and what He has done. That is the only requirement for salvation.

********

What a great Christmas we had. Sure hope yours was good also. On Sunday before Christmas I played hooky from church and we went over to my sister's house and opened presents with both of them. Then we carried everything down to the club house and had our annual Christmas dinner and party. (There were 19 people present!) I think everyone had a great time this year. My sisters had introduced a new element into the celebration. We had 9 door prizes to give away so after we had our name drawing we had the nine other drawings for the door prizes. It was a lot of fun. I think every body enjoyed them. We had so much fun but eventually it was time to clean up and head back home. Pepper had been locked in the house for hours and we knew we needed to head on home. I helped clean up as much as I could. It took several trips from the car to the house just to empty all the gifts out of the trunk! Monday we just vegged and I went to the store and bought us a small sirloin tip roast for our Christmas Day dinner. Tuesday (Christmas, yesterday) we didn't even bother to get dressed. We stayed casual all day long. I put the roast and potatoes and onions in the slow cooker and sat around watching the History Channel all day. I learned everything I've ever wanted to know about UFOs. After dinner we watched A Christmas Story. It wouldn't be Christmas day without the movie!

Then last night Ken and Tamara stopped by to deliver another gift from Patty and Randy. It was a very nice, stainless steel rice cooker. I'm really anxious to try it out. My new pan (it's not really new, just newer than the rest of my cookware) cooks rice very nicely except that it always boils over, filling my drip pan full of "rice juice." (You know, that thick white stuff that puddles around your pan no matter how low you have your burner set!) And now Christmas is over until next year. This year I'm going to try really hard to buy gifts throughout the year so I won't have to cram it all into a few days of shopping. Although I did good this year. I got all my Christmas shopping done and all the presents wrapped a couple weeks before Christmas. I ordered quite a few gifts from a couple catalog companies I like. Their products have always been so nice. Very high quality stuff. So I will probably resort back to ordering gifts through the mail and then if there's anyone left I'll finish it up at the drug store that has such nice gifts. I don't think I could ever work at that store because I would be spending my entire paycheck on gifts all the time. I'd never get home with any money.

Our weather has been nice over Christmas. Lots of sunshine and fair weather. Sunday's trip across the river was uneventful, no traffic to speak of at all. All in all, I have to say, this was one of the gentlest (is that a word?) Christmases ever! I thought it was going to be horrible because of needing to shop at WalMart and K-Mart. But I figured out a way to do all my shopping away from the crowds. I will never go back to WalMart shopping for Christmas after experiencing the quiet, laid back shopping of this year. I actually enjoyed shopping for everyone.

Well, it's getting late and I need to run some errands and get a few things done. I want to get in and clean the house (I'm going to try keeping it clean for a change!) Cathie, John, and Chris will be up in three days so I don't have this peace and quiet for long. I probably won't blog over the New Year celebrations. I may go AWOL again. Just thought I'd give you an advanced warning. With John's allergy to cats I need to vacuum everyday until they get here to keep the cat hair down to a minimum for him. So until tomorrow ...