Many look to their feelings to find assurance of their salvation. The only problem? Feelings lie. There is a far greater ground for confidence than the roller-coaster of feelings—that ground is God Himself!

In the first epistle of John, the apostle John is writing to a group of believers about what a Christian looks like with “all systems go.” Throughout his letter, he expresses in no uncertain terms what a person will do and be when they are saved, surrendered, and walking with Christ. That person will obey consistently (2:3-6), love liberally (2:7-11; 3:11-17), and conquer sin victoriously (3:1-10). And yet, herein was a problem for his readers.

No doubt, as these readers were comparing their personal experience to John’s picture of a victorious Christian, they felt pretty terrible about their poor performance. Some, perhaps misunderstood his teaching and doubted their salvation. That is why, I believe, John adds a bit of encouragement to his doubting readers.

And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.

1 John 3:19–20

Here in these verses, John is clearly speaking of “assurance” as we think of it—knowing for sure that we are saved, accepted by God, on our way to heaven. The problem is that when we compare ourselves to God’s expectations — even for a Christian — we can easily get discouraged and perhaps even doubt whether we are saved at all. Our feelings condemn us because we don’t feel like we measure up.

A Focus Problem

Many live in perpetual doubt about their salvation because their feelings keep telling them, “Look at you! Look at your life! You can’t be a Christian! Christians don’t do that!” Their hearts are “condemning them”, as John puts it. That kind of constant doubt results in a person who, in fact, does not live up to John’s picture of a victorious Christian, because he’s not sure if he’s even a Christian at all. No one can be a doubting Christian and a confident Christian at the same time. This doubt creates a vicious cycle of doubt-defeat-doubt that submerges the Christian into a torturous fog of self-condemnation, defeat, and discouragement. To put it simply, when a Christian doubts, he tanks.

You see, the reason why many doubt here is that they are looking to the wrong object for their assurance — themselves. As long as I look at myself — my obedience, my love, my victory — my assurance will fluctuate according to how I’m doing. When I’m doing well, I’m sure of my salvation; when I’m defeated, I doubt my salvation. To further compound the problem, as we saw before, when a Christian doubts, he tanks. This does not help his assurance, to say the least.

Break the Cycle

John here wants to help his readers (and us) break the cycle of doubt-defeat-doubt. Notice here, John does not say, “If our hearts condemn us, we are not saved!” That would be focusing on ourselves. Instead, he says, “If our hearts condemn us—God!” You see, the key to victorious assurance is not to focus on our performance, but on the object of our dependence—God!

When we look to God, we will see that God is truthful—He always tells it like it is, never leading us on, never pulling a bait-and-switch on us. We also see that He is faithful, that He always does what He says He will do. Not only that, but we see that God is unchanging—He and His faithfulness to us and His promises will never change. When we contrast those three facts about God with our own hearts—that it is deceitful not truthful, unfaithful not faithful, and always-changing, not never-changing—we will conclude with John, “God is greater than our hearts!”

You see, it is this focus on God that seriously grapples with the question, did God really mean it when he said that all I needed to do to be saved was to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 16:31)? Was God being truthful when He said that “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16)? The answer, no doubt will be, “Yes!!” God was being truthful; He will honor his Word; and that will never change!

You see, feelings of doubt reveal a focus problem. When you focus on the wrong object of your dependence, you begin to doubt and that leads to trouble. When, however, you focus on the faithfulness of God and His promise of salvation, you can stand in confidence that you are a child of God and you know you’re saved! Because He said so!